Speeches in the National Assembly

APPOINTMENT OF A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY TO INVESTIGATE THE INCIDENCE OF MARITIME AND RIVERINE INCIDENTS, INJURIES AND DEATHS
Mr. Felix: Thank you very, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of a motion moved in this honourable House by the Hon. David A. Granger, Leader of the Opposition, in which he seeks to bring attention in the Be It Resolved Clause of the incidence of riverine accidents which result in injury and loss o0f human life, and calls upon His Excellency the President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, in accordance with the Commission of Inquiries Act, Chapter 19:03, to appoint a commission of inquiry to inquire into maritime and riverine incidents which have occurred since 1st January, 1999, to determine the extent of such incidents and to make recommendations for safe travel and the protection of life on this country’s waterways and coastal waters.
I have listened to the Hon. Minister in which he tried to do two things: one, he was suggesting that there were probably more deaths sometime in periods gone in which they were not recorded as against what is happening now. I would like to suggest today, Hon. Minister, that that may be true, but the incidents of themselves - and I have had many relatives who suffered that way - were more related to miners crossing rapids and those deaths occurred, rather than the incidents I would be describing – collisions. Those are the incidents which gave rise to a motion to protect our people on the waterways.
In one riverine accident on December 18 in the Pomeroon River, six persons suffered and lost their lives. In less than a month after that, January 22, 2013, ten persons died in the Mazaruni River as a result of speeding boats colliding. If these incidents are not sufficiently serious to require an inquiry as to the causes and for us to learn lessons from the inquiry, then nothing else can.
The deaths of sixteen persons occurring in Guyana’s rivers within a relatively short period of time must give cause for concern over the safety of our citizens and it ought to draw close examination of the manner in which citizens operate their vessels in our rivers and the level of enforcement of our Shipping Act of 1998 and its appropriate regulations by the Government of Guyana which manages the relevant departments.
I think it was sometime in the early 1990’s when our Transport and Harbours’ Department was renamed Guyana Maritime Administration Department (MARAD). This is the organisation responsible, inter alia, for traffic in our harbours and ensuring that our vessels and their operators are certified. In order to execute this mandate, MARAD is relevant but it operates with a structure which starts with a Director General, then three Deputy Directors - one responsible for safety, one for ports and harbours, and one for administration. The issue here is that there is an inadequacy of the staff below them, with the training, skills and competencies to enable the Department to effectively discharge its functions.
If we are to sketch MARAD, we will find that it is a body with a large head and slender legs, few people at the bottom. As I speak, I remember Humpty Dumpty. But we do not want MARAD to fall. What we want to do is to provide an opportunity for a review to be taken of how the department operates, its structure and functions as against what we are experiencing on our most innocent rivers, whether it is Moruka, Mazaruni or Potaro. Apart from that, MARAD has been losing staff, senior and experienced staff, as a result of a certain kind of heavy-handed political management. Every person I have interviewed during this research has said that within the past six years, close to 80% of the senior and experienced staff fell to the sledge hammer, leaving MARAD bereft of staff qualified and trained to efficiently discharge the technical aspects of the job. To develop this competence on the job requires experience supported by training. After receiving basic training, the young members of MARAD are hardly exposed to further development though there is a privately operated school named MARPAL, recognised by the International Maritime Training Institutions, but Government has decided not to approve MARAD employees attending courses at this school because, as they claim, the courses which cause a major $360,000 for 8 weeks is to too expensive.
Mr. Speaker, I have conjured up in my mind that the real reason might be more associated with the school’s location being within the premises of Critchlow Labour College which is not in favour. Therefore, many of the levels of coastal masters and mates are deprived of advanced training to improve their proficiency in the technical aspects of their job. It would be instructive to find out when last or how frequent Government has released MARAD staff to train at the Caribbean Maritime Institute in Jamaica or at the World Maritime Institute. An honest answer would clearly expose Government’s attitude to organisational development.
The frequency of riverine accidents and the deaths which unfortunately follow must be attributed to the lack of capacity within MARAD and the Guyana Police Force to make our rivers safer than they currently are. Who inspects the balahoos, not just in the Demerara River, but Berbice, Essequibo, Moruka, the Koweals and the Batos? Obviously, that sort of duty must fall on the lower level of staff within the Department. Lack of capacity is clearly demonstrated when an accident occurs in one of our rivers because there is little or no frequent or surprise enforcement in our rivers, be it Essequibo, Demerara or Berbice much more the Cuyuni or Mazaruni Rivers. Who intercepts the drunken boat operators? Who inspects those vessels without the requisite safety equipment? Who does that on a patrol? There are no patrols so the frequencies of boats plying rivers are almost sure not to be encountered by the official departments responsible.
In the Corentyne River, Guyanese are drowning because propellers of their vessels become entangled with fishermen’s seine. In other cases, powerful outboard engines in the class of 200Hp or 290Hp engine powering boats produce phenomenal speed in the rivers and since these vessels do not have warning appliances, this omission must be compensated for by human look-outs employed, but who is to enforce them? In the larger vessels, the code is: to use one side of the river there is a certain number of blasts; one boat must to communicate to the other boat that it is using one side.  [Members (Government): No.]   These vessels have codes in which they indicate to other vessels which side of the river they are on. These small boats have no warning appliances. I contend that they have no warning appliance. Nobody knows that the other is on which side and so they collide.  [Members (Government): No.]   These vessels collide because one does not know of the other’s presence - plain and simple. You cannot change that! But the look-outs on these vessels have to compensate for the absence of warning appliances.
Over the past six years, some of the incidents on the nation’s waters have ended in dire consequences. In February, 2007, a young woman from Mocha drowned in the Corentyne River because the boat in which she was travelling, its engine got entangled in seine. In March, 2007, two persons died when their fishing vessel capsized.
In October, 2008, seven persons died when their vessel plying the Guyana/Suriname route capsized in the Corentyne River, again because of entanglement with seine. Should MARAD not be able to take these incidents into account and to come up with regulations to prevent them?
The deadliest year was 2009. In August, 2009, two persons in the Essequibo River died as a result of a collision; the other boat drove away - hit and run. That month a man was killed again in the Moruka River, an innocent river. Two others escaped death and injury. In May, again, this was in the Abary River, a boat capsized. There was another in the Demerara River, a collision early in the morning. In February, 2009, a farmer drowned in the Essequibo River in the vicinity of Lanaballi, twilight hours. In July, a Mahaica resident fell off a boat which was engulfed in flames and we have been talking about the absence of a fire boat. Just maybe with the quick passage of information, the fire boat could have been of some help to this person who suffered. Then there was a Brazilian miner who died in Bartica after the boat in which he was travelling struck a pile in the Essequibo river. Then we have in January of this year, a 22-year-old woman from the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) who died after the boat capsized in the Essequibo River.
During the period I have just described, we have had 14 incidents and 40 persons died. That is sufficient to require or to motivate anyone holding responsible office to call for a commission of inquiry. We must know what took place; we must bring closure to these incidents and we must point the nation to the way forward. How are we going to protect our citizens in these waters which are now becoming dangerous, as described by the Leader of the Opposition - competition for the use of the water?
Very senior marine officers must visit these [inaudible]. Can you imagine the Commissioner of Police visiting every fatal accident scene? This is what is happening here. They do not have the junior men to do this job and so they must compensate for the lack of capacity. So these senior officers are overworked.
In this book that I read by Gregory Moorhead and Ricky Griffin, Organizational Behaviour 1992, on page 525, an organisation is defined as “a group of people working together to achieve common goals”. And on the same page, they defined an organisational structure as “a system of tasks, reporting and authority relationships within which the work of the organisation is done”. The structure defines the firm and function of an organisation’s activities. Structure defines how parts of the organisation fit together as in an organisational chart. MARAD’s organisational chart ought to be known by its members; they ought to know their authority relationships. Again, if we check on someone’s desk or around his office, we might find it languishing. What is more important in this scenario than having a board to set policies for the organisation and allow the Director General or deputies and other seniors to execute those plans? What is wrong with the organisation formulating joint operations procedure between MARAD and the Police and MARAD and Guyana Fire Service?
The Hon. Minister was just talking about the search and rescue but, with its limited resources, MARAD needs to enlist the support of the police, being operatives on the river in all the counties. Again, the problem comes down to a lack of resources.
The police bought a boat a couple of years ago but the boat cannot reach salt water - $15 million. It has to be kept at the river station - inwards; it is a pleasure boat, not an operational boat. So, here we have resources going down the drain when these resources could have been properly employed to protect life and property. We have a selection method which does not benefit the organisation and that is what we are suffering from here. MARAD is also responsible for making the channel safe. I wonder what has happened...if the Minister is willing to tell us about the dredge, if it is working or why it is not working.
We have ideographic surveys which are to be done to make our coastline and so on well defined. We cannot have that. If the organisation is not properly structured and the organisation is not properly resourced, then we are bound to have these accidents occurring because the rivers are not properly patrolled; they are not properly policed by the organisations which are responsible for that level of patrolling and enforcement on our rivers.
We have a situation occurring now with MARAD. And I am about to quote here now from the Kaieteur News issue of 12th June, pages 7 to 8 “Marriott Hotel obstructs beam from lighthouse - Mariners have to utilise other navigational aids”. Was this organisation consulted? The Government [inaudible] organisation built a hotel to obstruct a lighthouse which has been there from time immemorial, endangering our seafarers out there. The beam is obstructed northwards so we have to understand here, in this context, what government’s attitude towards these departments is. They have them; they do not use them effectively. I want to submit, at this time, that this is not an effort to blame anybody; this is not an effort to throw blame or to hold anybody culpable. What we are seeking to do here is to bring these issues to attention that too many persons are dying on the road. We have a motion here where too many of our young persons have been shot and killed and there is no explanation in this House or anywhere as to their deaths. So, there is no closure.
Now we have the riverine deaths mounting. And I would like to warn that there have been three - if my count is correct - aircraft accidents. I hope that we do not get more. So what was once a little innocent country with little accidents now has accidents in every area. Safety, I plea, must be a priority of this Government and it should ensure that the resources are placed where they are best utilised.
Therefore, I close in supporting my Leader who was quite forthright.   [Mr. Nandlall: Do you have a choice?]    Mr. Know-all, I have recognised your red tie.
I wish to conclude by calling on the Government to utilise its best endeavours to protect the lives of Guyanese whether in the air, on land or on water. We deserve this protection from the Government; they are the persons in office. We cannot go and ask the Americans or the British. We have to ask the Government and the Government must, therefore, discharge those functions which fall to it.
Thank you very much. [Applause]