Political party, A New and United Guyana (ANUG) has expressed the view that blame for the deadly Mahdia dormitory fire could be laid squarely on incompetence and says ministers must be held accountable.
In a release yesterday, ANUG noted that “anger and outrage” have replaced the sorrow felt as a result of the disaster. “We now see the growing call for ‘justice’; our citizens need someone to blame, to hold responsible for the tragedy.”
The release noted the lack of fire prevention and detection measures with no administrative system of oversight to ensure the safety of the sleeping school children. Further highlighted was the “woefully inadequate” Mahdia fire department.
However, equally noted was the government’s attempts to detract attention from any question of accountability by “flooding” media outlets with pictures of “caring and sympathetic Ministers”, coupled with “lavish” promises of relief to families of victims. ANUG stated “The stratagem has not worked”.
Which, according to the release, begs the question: “Who is to blame?”
In tackling that question, ANUG says it agrees with the Leader of the Opposition that the relevant Ministers must be held accountable. “They ought to have expected and been prepared for fire, and taken safety precautions as a matter of a standard and fixed system of operation.”
Here, the release reminded that this is not the first fire at a school during this administration’s tenure in the relatively short period since its return to office and presented a catalogue of infernos: North Ruimveldt Multilateral in June, 2021; Northwest Secondary in September, 2021; St George’s Secondary in July, 2022; Amelia’s Ward Primary in September, 2022; and Christ Church Secondary in January, 2023. It noted that in each case, the incident was characterised by the “unpreparedness of the administration,” and by the absence of smoke detectors, fire alarms, fire extinguishers, and fire response systems.
As far as ANUG is concerned, each of these fires presented an easy lesson which should have alerted even the “most inept” of leaders that a fire prevention, alarm and safety system was urgently needed in schools. It again asks, “At what point must Guyanese all agree that a lesson ought to have been learned, and the Ministers with oversight of schools and social protection should have realised that perhaps the implementation of a fire prevention and fire safety system might be a good idea? Why do our leaders wait for nineteen children to die before someone says, ‘A system should be in place.’
“To make matters worse, this building was designed for security, and the children were locked in behind grilled bars with no easy escape from a clear fire hazard. Did no one think of safety? The responsibility must lie with our leaders, who are proven time and again to be woefully incompetent at any aspect of the real work of governance.”
However, in highlighting incompetence, ANUG observed that the main opposition party demonstrated “equal” incompetence during their term in office. They too have a list which reads: a fire at the Drop-in Centre at Sophia in July, 2016, two boys perished and 19 managed to escape. The inquiry ordered by President David Granger concluded that there were “systematic failures at all levels.” No systems were implemented. June, 2017, a fire at the Juvenile Detention Centre in Sophia resulted in some children being rushed to hospital when someone set alight a mattress. March 3, 2016, 17 inmates killed in the fire at the Camp Street Prison. “The administration did not learn from that ‘easy lesson’.” Thus, on July 9, 2017, the Camp Street prison was razed to the ground by a second fire.
“A frustrated editorial from the Stabroek News observed: ‘Despite the lessons that should have been learned from last year’s deadly fire at the Camp Street prison, witnesses say both the Guyana Fire Service and Guyana Water Inc (GWI) were not prepared for the fire that devastated the jail on Sunday.’ The political opposition of the day labelled the Granger government “bumbling, inept, and incompetent”, the party noted.
ANUG, which is part of the list joinder that holds one seat in Parliament, terms it as “ironic” that the Leader of the Opposition is calling for resignations and poses yet another question. “From the perspective of simple incompetence, can Guyanese distinguish between the Government and the Main Opposition?”
The recent tragedy that the nation has had to endure is all the more grievous because, according to ANUG, it was “foreseeable and preventable, but for the gross incompetence of our leaders.” And so it returns to its original question: “Who is to blame?”
In its attempt to make sense of it all, the party summed it up thusly.
“As long as we are prepared to overlook or excuse incompetence, corruption, mismanagement by our leaders in the firm belief that ‘our’ party is better than the ‘other’ party – is the lesser of two evils – then we are all to blame.
“As long as we vote for ethnicity, ignoring the steady decline of all societal standards, of health, of education, of living standards, of roads, of drains, of crime prevention, we are all to be blamed for the 19 children who died in Mahdia as a result of indifferent incompetence.”
