Awakening A Nation Held In Fear

THE 592 GUARDIAN
ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM · GEORGETOWN, GUYANA
Awakening A Nation Held In Fear

There are mornings when the news feels like a personal wound. A follower’s message reached me recently — a short, honest outcry about fear for the future, for children, for a country that promised so much and now seems adrift. “We are living in a time that feels downright scary,” she wrote. “Every day there is a new lie told with a straight face… prices rising, services collapsing, opportunities drying up, and the future slipping further out of reach.” That tremor of panic is not private. It is the collective shiver of a nation watching its institutions fray while those in charge insist nothing is wrong.—- Concerned Guyanese

Guyana today sits in an oil-rich moment, yet ranks poorly on global corruption indices, with perceptions of corruption worsening over recent years even as wealth expands. This is not an abstract indicator; it is a reflection of how people experience governance: contracts awarded without trust, procurement systems gamed, and oversight bodies present on paper but weak in practice.

When the United Nations Human Rights Committee has to urge Guyana to address the “root causes of corruption” in law enforcement, public procurement, and the oil sector, it is a sign that the rot is visible far beyond our borders, even if we are told to pretend otherwise at home.

To be afraid under such leadership is not weakness; it is clarity.

 We have integrity laws, like the Integrity Commission Act and the Audit Act, and we had a State Assets Recovery framework, yet the very body meant to recover stolen wealth was dismantled rather than strengthened. We have a Protected Disclosures and Witness Protection Act, but years later it has still not been brought fully into force, leaving whistleblowers exposed and ordinary citizens unprotected when they dare to speak. When laws exist only as decoration, people reasonably conclude that power, not principle, decides who is safe and who is sacrificed.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas sector — our supposed golden ticket — operates under a cloud of secrecy and doubt. International bodies have cited corruption risks in petroleum licensing and contracting, and even the UN has raised concerns about the transparency and accountability of permits and licenses for natural resource exploitation. When high-stakes decisions about our national patrimony are made without robust, independent oversight, the “spoils of office” feel very real to those who see contracts and privileges clustered around a small circle.

 The institutions that should anchor public trust are either underused or undermined. The Auditor General’s Office, the Integrity Commission, the Commissioner of Information, the Public Procurement Commission — all have been flagged by international observers as needing greater independence, effectiveness, and transparency. Even basic access to information is uneven, with reports that the Commissioner of Information does not address all public requests. Every unanswered query, every stalled investigation, every unexplained contract is another tiny fracture in the bond between citizen and state.

In this climate, the follower’s fear that “the moment you speak up… you are targeted” is not paranoia; it is rooted in a landscape where whistleblower protections are delayed and where criticism of corruption reports, rather than action on them, has become the response of those at the top. Hostility towards independent media and attempts to delegitimize scrutiny only deepen the sense that dissent is dangerous and that ordinary people who “just want better” are made to feel unsafe in their own country.

Yet despair is a dangerous surrender. It is the quiet partner of those who would hold power by intimidation and distraction. The message that “dissent is a threat” is precisely what enables wrongdoing to flourish. That is why silence is not neutral. It is a choice — and in our time, too many have accepted that choice because speaking out has been made costly and institutions that should protect courage have been left weak.

We must insist, instead, that courage be ordinary. Courage is the civil servant who insists on following procurement rules when shortcuts are demanded. It is the citizen who files information requests and refuses to be brushed aside. It is the journalist who keeps reporting, even when independent media is treated as an enemy rather than a partner in democracy. Courage is parents teaching their children that truth is not negotiable, even when leaders treat it like a campaign tool.

The path back to trust is practical as well as moral. We must demand the full activation of the Protected Disclosures and Witness Protection Act so that whistleblowers and witnesses can come forward without fear. We must insist that anti-corruption bodies — the Auditor General, the Integrity Commission, the Public Procurement Commission, the Commissioner of Information — be given real independence, resources, and teeth, not just titles. We must require that oil and gas licenses and natural resource permits undergo proper environmental and social impact assessments, in a transparent process where affected communities meaningfully participate. These are not radical demands; they are the minimum for a country that claims to be serious about its future.

To those who feel silence is safer: feel the cost of staying quiet. Hope withers when people who care decide it is less painful to look away. To those who benefit from the current arrangements: understand that a system built on opaque contracts, sidelined oversight, and intimidated critics is ultimately unstable — it erodes the very society that sustains wealth and security.

This is not a call to chaos. It is a call to steadfastness. We do not need an Arab Spring that burns everything. down; we need a Guyanese awakening that rebuilds the very institutions now hollowed out. We need a civic revival where accountability is prized as fiercely as profit, where public service is honored, and where the next generation can trust institutions because those institutions have earned that trust through transparent, lawful action.

If you love this country, act like it. Speak the truth, even when it is risky. Join others who demand better laws, better enforcement, and better behavior from those in office. Support independent media. Protect whistleblowers. Demand that our oil wealth be governed in daylight, not in shadows. Vote, organize, and refuse to accept fear as the final answer.

We are not helpless. We are a people with memory, with community, and with the tools — legal, institutional, and moral — to rebuild trust. If we choose to use them, the promise that once inspired this nation can be renewed, not by a single leader, but by many ordinary, brave hands determined to awaken the soul of Guyana