As indigenous leaders are meeting in Georgetown for the National Toshaos Council (NTC) Conference, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said the week-long conference is taking place during a sad time, when the country is faced with a “national tragedy.”
With the death toll steadily climbing from the MV Barima ferry tragedy, the Vice President said persons will be held accountable for the deadly incident.
It was explained that while the manifest reflected the names of 116 persons, and a crew of 17 persons, during the search and rescue operations, it was discovered that more than half of those rescued were not listed on the official manifest and there might have been many more unlisted passengers who were on the ferry when it sank.
A joint investigating task force comprising the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Defence Force and the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) has been established, and is actively pursuing the case.
“There are going to be consequences for people who did this. When we rescued the crew members, we decided immediately, when they were seeking medical attention to take some blood from them, and we found two of those crew members, they had marijuana traces in their blood, and they are under police custody now,” the Vice President said.
Mr. Jagdeo said the authorities are still trying to ascertain the true number of people who were on board the vessel. It is believed that there may have been 179 persons on board at the time of the tragedy.
Mr Jagdeo told the indigenous leaders, that once the distress call was received on Saturday night, the entire Cabinet sprang into action, including the President, who was out of the jurisdiction at the time of the incident.
The Cabinet, he said, was in constant communication with the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Coast Guard, and had instructed that assets be deployed immediately. The site of the sunken vessel was located around 2am Sunday morning, and the rescuers began pulling survivors from the water.
“Since then we have been in search and rescue mode and until now, we are still hopeful and we are not discontinuing that effort. We are still fully mobilized with the hope that we will have many more survivors than those who were rescued,” the Vice President said.
There are now calls for the Minister of Works, Juan Edghill to resign. The Prime Minister, Mark Phillips, has indicated that it will be the President who will have the final say on that particular issue.
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