A month ago Guyana had, unexpectedly, found itself immersed in a condition of shock and awe, having learnt that there had been a horrific fire at a state-run Dormitory at Mahdia. Nine-teen children occupying the Dormitory perished in the inferno. A twentieth had died in hospital.
The nation was plunged into mourning. In the immediate aftermath, the government had hastily dispatched a delegation of its senior officials to Mahdia to commiserate with the families of the deceased and with the community as a whole. Numbered amongst the official mourners was Education Minister Priya Manickchand under whose Ministry, overarching responsibility for the welfare of the Dormitory falls. One imagines that the assorted officials dispatched to Mahdia would have been ‘kitted out’ with suitably sombre countenances and appropriate expressions of regret over the tragedy.
The community, needless to say, would have been immersed in a condition of uncontrollable grief. In those circumstances the immediate response to whatever the government would have had to say about the tragedy may not, at the time, have mattered much anyway. The preoccupation of the community would have been with managing their grief as best they could. Truth be told, this was a circumstance which Mahdia is unlikely ever to forget.
Here, however, it would have been a matter of postponing the inevitable day of reckoning, a period of undertaking a ‘post-mortem’ of contemplating the issue of accountability. There was bound to be, as well, what one might call a ‘never again’ dimension that would have at least embraced a ‘what-is-to-be-done’ consideration. The tragedy, after all, had occurred ‘on the watch’ of the state itself, a circumstance that meant that it was the state and its officials, mostly, to which the searching questions would be directed.
Contextually, there was always the likelihood that the personages and institutions responsible for the welfare of the ill-fated Dormitory and its occupants might have to take it on the chin. That is an occupational hazard of being in the ‘hot seat,’ so to speak. Flat denial of responsibility bereft of anything by way of credibility or, alternatively, embarking on a bewildering obfuscation of the issue are usually the preferred options. Owning up is rarely, if ever, an option. The nation, however, was awaiting some kind of official response.
What the two ‘engagements’ between Minister Manickchand and the Stabroek News unmistakably suggest is that in the matter of the Mahdia tragedy Minister Manickchand would appear to have opted for simply obfuscating the issue. This is even as the Ministry’s report highlighted dire conditions and the need for fire safety just around a year before the May 22 blaze. It is this, as it happens, that is the stumbling block to the Minister creating a ‘get out’ for herself and her Ministry from the responsibility of having to at least help ‘carry the can.’ While she sticks unyieldingly to the matter of the ‘relevant parties,’ (whomsoever those might be), having been told of the UNICEF report on dorms (SN June 6), Minister Manickchand steers clear of addressing the issue as to whether her own overarching responsibility, as the subject Minister, ought not to have impelled her, personally, to specifically ‘oversee’ and keep track of such remedial work as might have been directed/recommended in the UNICEF Report. Here, it would have been a matter of making it known to whomsoever might have been responsible for overseeing/effecting the required remedial work that she considered the issue to be one of sufficient importance to assign one of her Ministry’s functionaries of suitable rank and authority to track both the pace of progress and the effectiveness of the remedial work recommended in the UNICEF report. The designated functionary would then have been responsible for providing the Minister with regular updates on the advancement of the assignment.
Here, the point should be made that the removing of the bars that kept the female occupants of the ill-fated Mahdia Dorm shut in ought to have been a priority concern among the ‘dire conditions’ identified for remedial action. All of these are matters, given the level of their importance, that ought to have fallen directly under the Minister’s purview.
Nor can there be little doubt that Minister Manickchand is displeased over Stabroek News’ hugging of the curve of accountability in its exchanges with her. That the newspaper’s line of inquiry in the matter of tragedy and accountability turned out, decidedly not to her liking is manifested in her altogether inappropriate “sensational headlines’ remark (SN June 8).
Put differently, there can be no question than that the Education Minister does not relish the Stabroek News’ seeking to hold her accountable in a matter in which, she, in her official capacity, has a case to answer.
