President Irfaan Ali on Sunday unveiled the five-member Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the MV Barima disaster, but the appointments have intensified criticism that the Government has chosen to investigate one of Guyana’s worst national tragedies through a process designed almost exclusively by the Executive, without consulting the parliamentary Opposition or other key national stakeholders.

The Commission will be chaired by Justice Godfrey Phillip Smith of Belize, a former Attorney General, CARICOM’s High-Level Representative on Law and Criminal Justice, and an ad hoc Justice of Appeal in the Eastern Caribbean. Smith also served on Guyana’s Commission of Inquiry into the 2020 General and Regional Elections.

The other commissioners are Captain Hamada Fouda, a senior maritime surveyor with Jamaica’s Maritime Authority; Nyree Dawn Alfonso, a Trinidad and Tobago attorney specialising in admiralty and maritime law; Rear Admiral (Ret’d) Hayden Pritchard, former Chief of Defence Staff of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force; and Dr. Andrzej Jasionowski of Poland, a forensic naval architect and marine engineer with experience in major international maritime investigations.