Building Fast, Paying Forever: Guyana’s Developmental Dilemma

592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Building Fast, Paying Forever: Guyana’s Developmental Dilemma

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EDITORIAL — 592 GUARDIAN

Guyana’s construction surge is real, visible, and in many respects necessary. New highways, bridges, schools, hospitals, stadiums, hinterland facilities, housing schemes, and the ongoing modern  Silica City all project an image of a country finally breaking free from decades of infrastructural stagnation. That image has political value, but it also carries a serious fiscal and institutional warning: a country can build faster than it can maintain.

The real test begins after the cameras leave.

Every administration understands the power of a ribbon-cutting. A new road provides photographs, applause, speeches, music, food, and an immediate political message: we are delivering. A bridge becomes proof of modernity. A stadium becomes a national symbol. A new school, hospital, or housing development gives communities a concrete reason to feel seen.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Guyanese citizens have every right to demand and celebrate better public infrastructure after years of inadequate roads, drainage, public buildings, health facilities, and transportation links. Development cannot mean preserving dysfunction merely because repair and maintenance are less glamorous than a grand opening.

But government has increasingly encouraged a troubling definition of progress: if it is new, large, announced with fanfare, and physically visible, it is presumed to be successful

That is not development planning. It is development theatre unless the state can demonstrate that each project is affordable over its full life, resilient to Guyana’s climate, supported by qualified personnel, and subject to transparent maintenance and operating plans.

A highway does not end at its commissioning. A hospital is not complete when its doors open. A bridge is not a one-time expenditure. A model village is not sustainable merely because lots have been cleared, roads paved, and houses erected.

The real test begins after the cameras leave.

Oil money is not the whole story

The public conversation often treats Guyana’s current construction drive as though the country is simply spending an overflowing stream of petroleum money. That is an incomplete, and potentially dangerous, account.

Oil revenues have undoubtedly transformed the Government’s fiscal capacity. Transfers from the Natural Resource Fund have enabled expenditure on a scale that was inconceivable only a few years ago. Yet many major projects are also being financed through loans, including external borrowing from institutions and lenders such as the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Caribbean Development Bank.

Borrowing is not automatically reckless. Governments commonly borrow for long-lived productive infrastructure. A well-designed bridge, road network, energy system, hospital, or port may yield public and economic benefits over decades, making it reasonable to spread the financing cost over time.

The question is not whether Guyana should borrow. The question is whether it is borrowing strategically, transparently, and within an honest assessment of future obligations.

For every loan-funded project, the country must ask:

⇒What is the full capital cost, including variations, consultancy fees, land acquisition, compensation, and contingency spending?

⇒ What are the interest rate, grace period, maturity, currency risks, and repayment schedule?

⇒ What is the annual recurrent cost after construction is finished?

⇒ Does the state have the engineers, technicians, nurses, teachers, maintenance crews, spare parts, equipment, and management systems needed to operate it?

⇒ What revenue, savings, or measurable public benefit will justify the cost?

⇒ Has Parliament and the public received sufficient information to scrutinize the terms?

⇒ What happens if oil production declines, prices fall, costs rise, or project timelines slip?

A government flush with oil revenue can create the illusion that debt no longer matters. It does. Oil income may make borrowing easier today, but it does not erase the obligation to repay tomorrow. Nor does it guarantee that the country will receive value for every dollar spent.

The maintenance trap

The greatest danger in a rapid building program is not necessarily the first cost. It is the recurring cost that follows. Infrastructure is an asset only if it remains functional. Without routine maintenance, it becomes a liability with a ribbon-cutting photograph attached.

Guyana already knows this story. Roads deteriorate because drainage is neglected. Public buildings decay because small repairs are deferred until they become major rehabilitation projects. Recreational facilities are built but not properly staffed, secured, cleaned, or programmed. Equipment sits idle because a replacement part, a trained technician, or a maintenance contract was never budgeted. New facilities are handed over without a clear agency responsible for their upkeep.

The country’s tropical climate makes the matter even more urgent. Heavy rainfall, flooding, intense heat, high humidity, saline conditions in some areas, and drainage failures can rapidly undermine roads, bridges, buildings, electrical systems, and public spaces. A maintenance regime suitable for a temperate country cannot simply be imported and expected to work here.

The question for every new asset should be straightforward: who maintains it, with what budget, under which standards, and at what frequency?

If the answer is vague, the project is not fully planned.

A new highway requires drainage clearing, resurfacing cycles, signage replacement, lighting repairs, guardrail maintenance, vegetation control, traffic enforcement, accident response, and protection against unlawful encroachment. A hospital requires not merely a building but biomedical engineers, continuous equipment servicing, reliable electricity and water, waste systems, procurement discipline, pharmaceuticals, staffing, security, cleaning, and digital records management. A stadium requires a sustainable management and revenue model, not occasional national events followed by months of underuse. These are not side issues. They are the project.

Building versus governing

The administration’s appetite for new projects may be politically understandable, but governance cannot operate on appetite alone. It requires sequencing, prioritization, institutional readiness, and measurable value.

There is a difference between a national development plan and a constantly expanding catalogue of announcements.

When projects are announced in quick succession, sometimes before the public has received satisfactory information about existing commitments, the concern is not that Guyana is building too much in some abstract sense.                                                                                    The concern is whether the state has developed the capacity to govern the construction boom:

♦ Can ministries supervise the contracts?                                                    ♦ Can procurement systems withstand the pressure? Can technical agencies evaluate designs and certify completed works independently? ♦ Can auditors trace expenditures, variations, and deliverables?              ♦ Can local authorities maintain the assets transferred to them?            ♦  Can the country prevent politically connected contractors from turning national development into private enrichment?

These questions become more pressing when capital expenditure rises rapidly. Large sums moving through weak or overstretched systems create opportunities for inflated costs, change orders, poor-quality work, delayed completion, inadequate inspection, and contracts that appear impressive on paper but deliver disappointing results on the ground.

The response cannot be, “Look at what has been built.” The public is entitled to ask whether it was properly procured, competently built, independently inspected, economically justified, and sustainably maintained.Concrete is not evidence of value for money.

Silica City and the risk of prestige planning

Silica City is perhaps the clearest illustration of the broader dilemma. A planned city can be visionary. Guyana needs thoughtful urban development, stronger internal connectivity, climate-resilient settlement planning, and alternatives to the congestion and drainage pressures of the coast.

But a city cannot be willed into success through renderings, land clearing, ceremonial launches, and political declarations.   

A viable new city requires water, sanitation, electricity, telecommunications, public transport, schools, health care, policing, jobs, commercial activity, drainage, waste management, land-use regulation, and an institutional framework for governance. Above all, it requires people who can afford and choose to live there, and economic activity strong enough to sustain it.

The country must avoid prestige planning: projects designed chiefly to announce a new era, create a visual legacy, or satisfy political timelines, but which later impose heavy operating costs on taxpayers.

Silica City should therefore be subjected to the most rigorous public scrutiny: its financing model, land allocation policies, environmental safeguards, utility plans, housing affordability, projected population, job base, governance structure, and long-term operating costs should be publicly available and continuously updated.

If it is truly a national project, it must survive public examination.

Expansion without Vision 

Expansion also carries an unavoidable demand for utilities, above all a dependable supply of electricity. Every new highway corridor, housing scheme, hospital, school, commercial centre, industrial facility, stadium, and planned community adds to the country’s energy burden. Yet the evidence to date suggests that electricity is already the weak link in Guyana’s development push. Increased demand, compounded by the effects associated with the El Niño phenomenon and stressed generation capacity, has produced recurring shortfalls that leave households and businesses grappling with daily blackouts.

The consequences are not confined to inconvenience: businesses lose productive hours, perishable goods are damaged, equipment is put at risk, families absorb the cost of backup generators and fuel, and investors confront uncertainty about whether the basic utility required to operate can be relied upon. Development cannot proceed at the speed promised in press releases when the power system is operating under strain. New communities, industries, hospitals, schools, and the ongoing Silica City cannot be sustained by ambition alone; they require generation capacity, transmission infrastructure, distribution upgrades, reserve power, skilled maintenance personnel, and credible long-term energy planning.

Otherwise, the country risks building an impressive physical landscape whose economic and social potential is repeatedly stalled by the absence of reliable electricity.

The missing maintenance architecture

Guyana needs a maintenance architecture as ambitious as its construction programme. That means treating preservation as a core budgetary responsibility rather than an afterthought left for future governments, depleted agencies, or communities already struggling to meet basic needs.

At a minimum, the Government should establish and publish a national public-assets register that identifies major infrastructure, its responsible agency, replacement value, condition, maintenance schedule, and estimated annual upkeep requirement.

Each major project should also carry a publicly disclosed lifecycle plan before construction begins. That plan should state:

⇒The total expected cost over the asset’s useful life, not merely the construction cost.

⇒ The ministry, regional authority, municipality, or agency responsible for maintenance.

⇒ The annual recurrent budget required for staffing, utilities, repairs, replacement parts, and service contracts.

⇒ The standards by which maintenance performance will be measured.

⇒ The source of financing once initial project funds are exhausted.

⇒ The independent oversight and audit arrangements governing the asset.

Parliament should insist on this information before approving substantial capital allocations and external borrowing. The Auditor General should have the resources and legal authority to conduct timely performance audits, not only financial audits, of major infrastructure projects. The Public Procurement Commission must be strong enough to scrutinise procurement before wrongdoing becomes irreversible The National Assembly should not be reduced to approving expenditure after political decisions have already been made. It must become a forum for testing the assumptions behind projects, borrowing plans, and lifetime costs.

Oil must create lasting capacity

The wisest use of Guyana’s oil wealth is not to create a permanent dependence on oil-financed construction. It is to use this temporary windfall to build institutions, human capital, diversified productive sectors, and durable public assets.

The country should not confuse expenditure with transformation.

♦ A bridge that cuts travel time and unlocks commerce can be transformational.                                                                                              ♦  A hospital that is staffed, equipped, accountable, and accessible can be transformational.                                                                                        ♦  A school that produces capable citizens and workers can be transformational.                                                                                              ♦  Roads that connect farmers and hinterland communities to markets can be transformational.

But none of these outcomes is assured by construction alone.

♦ Real development means a road remains safe and usable ten years later.                                                                                                                    ♦ It means drainage works when the rains come.                                        ♦ It means medical machinery is repaired rather than abandoned.          ♦ It means schools have teachers, hospitals have specialists, and public facilities have reliable utilities and competent management.                    ♦ It means citizens can inspect how public money was borrowed, spent, and safeguarded.

The nation should welcome development, but it must reject the notion that questioning it is opposition to progress. Scrutiny is not sabotage. Transparency is not obstruction. Maintenance is not a minor administrative detail.

They are the difference between a country that is merely building and a country that is truly developing.

Guyana is at a historic crossroads. It can use oil revenue and responsible financing to create infrastructure that serves several generations. Or it can rush into an era of grand announcements, debt-financed monuments, weak oversight, and decaying assets whose maintenance costs are left for the public to bear.

The ribbon will eventually be cut. The speeches will end. The food and drink will be gone.

What will remain is the bill, the debt, the maintenance burden—and the public’s right to demand that what was built in its name continues to work.