From everything that this newspaper has been able to learn about the recent fire at the Laparkan Lombard Street wharf, a very senior state agency official has apparently gone on record as saying that at the time of the fire highly flammable chemicals were being stored in the bond where, apparently, the fire started. Significantly, the Guyana Fire Service, probably not unmindful of the recent torrid time that its image has suffered in the wake of last October’s Brickdam Police Station conflagration, would appear to have either advised itself or might have been advised to remain mum on the matter of the origin of the fire. What we have been told so far, however, reportedly by the aforementioned state official, is that at the time of the fire the bond was the repository for “highly inflammable chemicals,” the property of a high-profile company.
We have to wait and see whether we will be told anything beyond what is already in the public domain. Here, it could go one way or another, given the manner in which these occurrences are usually handled. We could even benefit from full and enlightening disclosure on the fire, its cause and the various other pertinent details or we could be simply left to dwell in the realm of speculation, permanently. Here, the instances of the Brickdam Police Station fire and the subsequent Eve Leary conflagration are instructive. One does not get the impression that nothing even remotely resembling full disclosure has been forthcoming up until now.
Mind you, half-explained major fires have become par for the course in Guyana, never mind the fact that state-owned properties, including schools and police stations, as well as multi-million dollar business premises are ever so often, victims of fire. Surely, in these instances, these instances, for all sorts of reasons, warrant painstaking and thorough investigation and subsequent full disclosure. When this does not happen people cannot be blamed for being persuaded that there is something to hide.
Even in the absence of what the aforementioned senior state functionary reportedly had to say about the Laparkan bond fire, it is no secret Guyana has had a history of strange stories, even far-fetched ones (such as the one that attended the Brickdam Police station fire) emanating from major fires. Perhaps worse, one certainly does not feel that the authorities are usually inclined to behave in such a manner as to assure the public that it considers itself accountable to the public at large (again the Brickdam Police Station Fire comes to mind) in tragedies of such magnitude.
Of course, it is altogether reasonable to raise the question as to whether the Guyana Fire Service and the various other investigating authorities ought not, by now, to have been able to say more about the cause of fire given that which is already in the public domain. Frankly, with almost a week having passed since the fire reportedly involving “highly flammable oil chemicals for a prominent American oil company” occurred, one feels that the competent authorities may have already made their own decision as to just how the incident will be handled. Certainly, delayed full disclosure raises understandable concerns as to whether we will ever hear the truth about the fire.
However, two points should be made at this juncture. First, it makes, decidedly, for an emotional state of angst and inquietude in circumstances where one feels that hiding truths has become par for the course in circumstances where the public has a right to know. Secondly, what the political administration and the state agencies that it manages need to be aware of is that in circumstances where, more than ever before, the country is being held up to a glaring global spotlight, there exists expectations of transparency and openness that are a considerable improvement on what still obtains up to this time.
Of course, if the reports attributed to the senior state official are true then, at a time when Guyana is being aggressively propagated as an investment haven, the authorities need to be mindful of the fact that our ‘primitive’ safety and health regimen which both state and private sector entities are guilty of indulging at this time, ought to be probed and remedied in short order. Whether, of course, the authorities will ‘bat an eyelid’ here is an entirely different matter.
