The Billion-Dollar Drainage Paradox

 Billions Vanished; Floodwaters Return — The D&I Accountability Gap They Can’t Spin Away

The May 31 CHRONICLE– CROSSFIRE column titled “Floodwaters and Political Opportunism” is an audacious attempt to repackage a decade of administrative failure as leadership. The column praises President Irfaan Ali for convening emergency meetings “before dawn” and deploying pumps as if this were a triumph. However, this is not leadership—it is damage control for a system that should already be functioning effectively after $ 140 billion in spending.

The fundamental question the column dodges is this: if billions have truly been spent on drainage and irrigation (D&I), why does the nation revert to crisis mode with every heavy rainfall?
Let’s examine the actual numbers:

These are not marginal investments. This is transformative-level spending that should have permanently resolved coastal flooding. Yet the flooding persists with devastating regularity.

Investigative Findings: Projects Announced, Promises Broken
The column breathlessly describes “hundreds of pumps operating across the country” and “newly acquired mobile systems.” But the investigative record tells a different story:
1. Geographic Spread of Failure (May 2026)
•East Coast Demerara: ~100mm rainfall, flooding in most communities 
•Leonora (Region 3): ~225mm rainfall, severe flooding 
•Region 10 (Linden): Repeated flooding despite G$1.5B in D&I spending 
•Berbice: Communities flooded simultaneously 
•West Coast: Also affected, showing systemic failure 
When flooding hits five regions simultaneously, this is not an “unpredictable weather event.” This is systemic infrastructure collapse.
2. The December 2025 Georgetown Flooding Contradiction
In December 2025, downtown Georgetown flooded after “only a brief period of rain,” paralyzing commerce and schools. This occurred just months after:
•President Ali boasted of “electronic monitoring of the drainage system by October 2025” 

•Minister Mustapha announced billion-dollar drainage investments 
The result? Knee-high water in commercial streets, children removing shoes to walk to school, and businesses forced to close. 
3. The G$73 Billion CDC Reliefs Failure
Despite G$73 billion (~US$350 million) allocated to the Civil Defense Commission for disaster preparedness and response:
•Residents report receiving NO cleaning supplies (mops, bleach) 
•No financial aid distributed 
•No emergency support provided 
•Families “deadlifting refrigerators out of contaminated floodwater” in the dark 

This is not “swift activation.” This is procurement paralysis at the expense of suffering citizens.
4. The 30,000-Household Emergency Pattern
The government distributed almost 30,000 hampers to flood victims in May 2026. This mirrors the 2021 flood crisis when 29,300 households in 300+ communities were affected. The pattern is clear:

•Flood → Emergency hampers → Water recedes → Families rebuild → Flood returns → Repeat
This is not governance. This is crisis management as a permanent state.

The Root Problem: Corruption, Cronyism, and Administrative Incompetence
The column dismisses criticism as “political theatre” and “manufactured outrage.” But the real crisis is documented in investigative reports:
1. Corruption at the Core of Infrastructure Failure
Shadow Attorney General Roysdale Forde explicitly states that Guyana’s infrastructure crisis is rooted in systematic corruption:

“Billions in public funds allocated for infrastructure projects have been misused or siphoned off, with political patronage and corruption at the forefront… contracts are routinely awarded to party loyalists, many of whom lack the competence to execute the work but are skilled in enriching themselves at the public’s expense.”

Forde goes further

“It is the result of political decisions driven by kickbacks, favoritism, and outright theft… widespread corruption has led to shoddy construction, overpriced repairs, and the creation of ‘ghost’ projects that serve only to line the pockets of those in power.”

2. The PPP/C Cronyism Network
Investigative reports document that up to 70% of contracts in some regions go to cronies through blatant favoritism. Businesses are routinely pressured to pay kickbacks of 10–20% of contract values just to secure deals.

3. The Heroes Highway Example
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally experienced the Heroes Highway during his March 2027 visit and called it “dangerous,” accusing contractors of doing a “terrible job”:

“If you did that job in America, someone would sue you for a lot of money… You’re better off with the dirt road… If you’re going to build a road, build a real road.” 

The highway was built by 12 local contractors with close ties to the ruling PPP/C. This is not accidental poor quality—this is systematic patronage.

4. The Kingston Waterfront Scandal
The Kingston Waterfront development project, launched as a “transformative urban renewal initiative,” has come under scrutiny for massive cost overruns and lack of accountability:

“Investigations have revealed irregularities in the bidding process, with a handful of well-connected contractors linked to PPP/C officials allegedly receiving inflated contracts.”

5. Oil-for-Infrastructure Deals Under Scrutiny
Investigative reports suggest that “Oil for infrastructure” deals are rife with corruption:

“Key government figures are accused of receiving kickbacks from foreign firms contracted to undertake these projects, inflating costs and delivering subpar results while siphoning off public funds.”

The Auditor General’s Flood Relief Investigation
In 2022, the Auditor General launched a special investigation into the Government’s Flood Relief Program after discovering major discrepancies:
•Office of the Prime Minister received G$183.5 million for ‘Other expenses’
•G$10 billion supplementary budget approved for Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Management
•Total revised allotment: G$10.184 billion
•Hundreds of millions unaccounted for.
The Auditor General’s report explicitly flagged major discrepancies in how flood relief funds were spent. This is not speculation—this is official audit findings.
The “Swift Response” Myth Deconstructed
The column describes the government response as “swift activation” and “coordinated response.” Let’s examine that claim:
What the Column Claims:
• “President convened senior officials before dawn”
• “Pumps were deployed, drainage systems mobilized”
• “More than 200 pumping units were deployed nationally”
• “Dozens of pumps were already operational on East Coast Demerara”
What Actually Happened:
•President had to convene emergency meetings at sunrise because the system failed 
•200 pumping units deployed as emergency stopgaps, not as functional infrastructure 
•30,000 households received emergency hampers, not systemic relief
•G$73 billion CDC allocation yielded no visible mobilization for victims

Here’s the contradiction: If the system was already “fixed” with G$140 billion in spending, why does the President need to convene emergency meetings every time it rains?
The answer is simple: The infrastructure was not fixed. The money was wasted.

The Real Question: Why Does the President Still Have to Fix What Was Already Supposed to Be Fixed?

The column frames the President’s sunrise emergency convening as “leadership.” But this is the leadership of a lighthouse keeper who lights the lamp every night instead of fixing the broken bulb during the day.
A properly functioning D&I system would:

•Drain water naturally without emergency pump deployment

•Prevent floodwaters from entering homes, yards, and business

•Operate without requiring Presidential emergency meetings

•Not require 30,000 households to receive emergency hampers

The fact that the President must convene senior officials, including Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo, ministers, regional leaders, and engineers every time it rains heavily is evidence of systemic failure, not leadership.

Why Criticism Is Not “Opportunism” — It’s Accountability

The column attempts to delegitimize dissent by calling it “political theatre,” “calculated exploitation,” and “livestream outrage.” But citizens are not “manufacturing” this crisis. They are living it:

•Families in flooded homes with water “right with the bed”

•Small businesses destroyed, livelihoods disrupted

•Schoolchildren removing shoes to walk through floodwaters

•Entire regions facing simultaneous flooding

•30,000 households receiving emergency hampers instead of permanent solutions.

This frustration is not political theater—it is accumulated anger from a decade of repeated flooding, broken promises, and unaccounted spending.

The Historical Context: This Is Not New

The column gestures at “historical perspective” and claims “recent responses demonstrate a level of capacity and coordination that would have been difficult to imagine in previous decades.” But the data contradicts this:
2005 Floods: Nationwide catastrophe, weeks of flooding
2013 Floods: 30,000+ households affected
2021 Floods: 29,300 households in 300+ communities affected
2025 Floods: Georgetown downtown paralyzed after brief rain
2026 Floods: Multiple regions simultaneously flooded, 30,000 households receiving hampers
The pattern is clear: Flooding recurs with increasing regularity, not decreasing frequency. The column’s claim of “improved capacity” is contradicted by the facts.

What the Public Is No Longer Buying

The column’s attempt to frame emergency response as success and criticism as opportunism is a political misfire. No serious observer doubts that emergency response is necessary. But response is not a substitute for competence, prevention, and accountability.

Guyanese are not buying the narrative that:

G$140 billion already spent—WHERE DID IT GO?

The Questions That Must Be Answered

The floodwaters will recede. But these questions remain:
1.Where did the G$140 billion go? If systems were properly built, why does flooding persist?
2.Why did the G$73 billion CDC allocation yield no relief for victims? Who authorized this spending?
3.Why are contracts routinely awarded to PPP/C loyalists without competitive bidding?
4.Why do 70% of contracts in some regions go to cronies?
5.Why did the Auditor General find hundreds of millions unaccounted for in flood relief?
6.Why does the President still convene emergency meetings every time it rains? 
7.Why did Georgetown flood in December 2025 after “electronic monitoring” was supposedly implemented?
8.Why are roads like Heroes Highway called “dangerous” by the U.S. Secretary of State?

Conclusion: The Public Has Seen This Script Before
The column’s rhetoric is familiar: praise emergency response, dismiss criticism, deflect from systemic failure. But the public is no longer buying it.

Guyana deserves more than narratives of reassurance. It deserves:

•Transparency on what is not working
•Accountability for why billions were wasted
•A credible plan to ensure the next rainfall event does not produce the same national distress

Until those questions are answered with honesty and measurable results—not rhetoric—the public will rightly reject any attempt to reclassify recurring disaster as governance success.

Politics at its worst is profiting from problems. Politics at its best solves them. This government has yet to prove it can do the latter after G$140 billion in spending.
The floodwaters will recede. What remains will be a clearer picture of who squandered the money, who failed to build the systems, and who is responsible for the suffering of 30,000 households.

History has a habit of distinguishing between the two. And voters usually do as well

⁂EDITOR NOTE’S

Analysis of NDIA maintenance failures cited in recent audit reports
The recent Auditor General report on NDIA is quite clear: the problem is not simply “bad weather,” but a pattern of weak planning, poor records, vacant leadership posts, and incomplete maintenance oversight that undermines drainage performance.  NDIA spent G$6.674 billion on asset maintenance from January 2021 to June 2024, yet the audit still found no structured maintenance system, no comprehensive planning, and no reliable way to verify nearly half of sampled expenditure.
What the audit found
The audit says NDIA had over 30 vacancies every year from 2021 to 2024, with key positions such as CEO, Deputy CEO, Corporate Secretary/Legal Officer, Manager of Operations and Maintenance, Mechanical Engineers, Internal Auditor, and Engineering Technicians still vacant by September 2024. It also found that the Authority could not present its asset management policy, could not support claims about a multi-year strategic plan, and had no assessed training needs or training plan for staff. Those are not minor administrative gaps; they are the kind of failures that weaken daily upkeep and make systems break down when heavy rain arrives.
Maintenance spending gap
The report shows maintenance spending rising sharply: G$1.079 billion in 2021, G$1.643 billion in 2022, G$2.461 billion in 2023, and G$1.490 billion in the first half of 2024, totaling G$6.674 billion. But the audit also says NDIA’s budget documents did not explain how maintenance needs were calculated, and financial reports were too vague to show what was spent on which maintenance category. In one sample review of 99 assets costing G$2.314 billion, NDIA could present vouchers for only G$1.126 billion, leaving G$1.188 billion, or 51 percent, unverified.
Recordkeeping failures
The audit is especially strong on asset control and documentation. It found the asset register missing key details such as asset location, serial numbers, identification numbers, and transfer records, which meant the register could not reliably track equipment. It also found that proof of ownership for most of the more than 500 recorded assets was not provided, and that 10 pieces of heavy-duty equipment, motor vehicles, and cycles seen in the field were not recorded in the register. That kind of record failure makes it much easier for assets to be lost, misused, or simply left unaccounted for.

NDIA’s recent audit shows that billions were spent on drainage maintenance, but weak planning, vacant senior posts, poor asset records, and unverifiable expenditures left the system unable to deliver the reliability Guyanese communities were promised.

EDITORIAL — SPECIAL REPORT 

RESOURCE SOVEREIGNTY & GOVERNANCE REVIEW 

EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES · TAX POLICY · NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY 

The Invisible Transfer: 

How Guyana’s Governance Gaps Give Away Strategic Resources 

When a uranium deposit changes hands in Singapore, Guyana collects nothing. This is not an accident— it is a system working exactly as poorly designed systems do. 

MAY 2026 · SPECIAL EDITORIAL · TAX & RESOURCE GOVERNANCE

The acquisition of Guyana’s only uranium project by Canadian firm U92 Energy Corp.—executed through the purchase of Singapore-registered LIA Industries Pte. Ltd.—did not merely expose a gap in one law. It illuminated the outline of a governance architecture that was never built. What the country faces is not a single loophole to be patched; it is a structural condition in which the legal, regulatory, and fiscal scaffolding around its extractive sector lags dangerously behind the sophistication of those who exploit it. 

The mechanism here is neither novel nor obscure. It is a well documented instrument in the global extractive industry: the indirect transfer of resource assets through offshore holding companies. Instead of selling the Guyanese asset directly—which would trigger domestic tax obligations—a company sells the foreign entity that owns the asset. The asset never formally moves. Only the beneficial owners change. And so, from Guyana’s current legal vantage point, nothing taxable occurred on its soil at all. 

The Kurupung uranium project—spanning over 90 square kilometers with an estimated 20.6 million pounds of uranium in the ground—changed hands without the State capturing a single dollar in transfer taxes, capital gains tax, or windfall levies. In a world increasingly turning toward nuclear energy as a low carbon baseload solution, uranium is not merely a mineral. It is a strategic asset. And Guyana appears to have had no seat at the table when its ownership was reassigned.

“The DRC did not even know it was happening, despite owning a 20% equity stake in the project. The acquisition occurred entirely onshore, through a Bermuda holding company, and the country received nothing.”

COLUMBIA CENTER ON SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT, ON THE $2.65 BILLION TENKE FUNGURUME COPPER MINE SALE, 2016

Guyana is not alone in this vulnerability—but the global precedents make inaction all the more inexcusable. The Democratic Republic of Congo watched as Freeport McMoRan sold its 56% controlling stake in one of its largest copper mines to China Molybdenum through a Bermuda holding company for $2.65 billion, receiving nothing in return. The DRC did not even know the transaction was occurring. If that scale of loss is possible in a country with a 20% equity stake and formal operator relationships, consider what is possible in a country where the regulatory regime is still being assembled.

1.The Anatomy of an Indirect Transfer

To understand the full scope of the problem, one must understand how these transactions are structured. A mining or resource company wishing to exit a project in a developing country has two broad options: sell the underlying asset directly or sell the shares in a company that holds that asset. The first route is visible, taxable, and open subject to regulatory approval in the host country. The second route—the indirect transfer—occurs in a foreign jurisdiction, sometimes involving multiple layers of holding companies across multiple tax havens.

In Guyana’s case, LIA Industries Pte. Ltd., incorporated in Singapore, held the prospecting license for the Kurupung uranium project. When U92 Energy Corp. acquired LIA Industries, it acquired Guyana’s uranium project. But legally, what was sold was a Singapore company. Singapore received whatever taxes were applicable there. Guyana received none. 

The Platform for Collaboration on Tax—a joint body of the IMF, OECD, UN, and World Bank—has articulated the foundational principle clearly: direct and indirect asset transfers that represent the same transfer of ownership should attract the same tax treatment. Otherwise, the incentive structure actively encourages offshore structuring to avoid the host country’s fiscal claim. 

This is precisely what Guyana’s current framework incentivizes. The country’s tax legislation does not contain provisions to “look through” the offshore holding structure and assert fiscal jurisdiction over gains derived from the underlying Guyanese resource. The result is a system in which the more creative the corporate structure, the less the country collects. 

The UN Handbook on Selected Issues for Taxation of the Extractive Industries—a dedicated technical resource for developing countries— identifies indirect asset transfers as a discrete and serious challenge, dedicating an entire chapter to the design of legal responses. Guyana does not yet appear to have translated that guidance into legislative action. 

COMPARATIVE CASE 

How Tanzania Closed the Gap

Tanzania’s Mining Act and Income Tax Act were amended to treat indirect transfers of mining rights as taxable events, requiring notification and withholding, regardless of where the transaction occurs. The triggering criterion is whether the underlying asset derives its value principally from Tanzanian resources. Similar “principal value” tests have been adopted across Africa and Asia. 

Countries including Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, India, China, and Peru have each, in their own ways, enacted legislation that either taxes indirect transfers directly, requires their notification, or subjects them to approval conditions. Guyana has none of these protections. 

11.A License Is a Public Asset. It Must Be Treated as One.

At the center of this transaction lies a prospecting license—a legal right granted by the Guyanese State to explore and potentially extract a mineral resource that belongs, constitutionally, to the people of

Guyana. It is not a private property right that can circulate freely in commercial channels without State involvement. It is a delegated public right, granted conditionally, revocable in principle, and tied to specific obligations of the licensee. 

Yet the practical reality is that this license has now passed to new beneficial owners—U92 Energy Corp. and its principals—without any formal regulatory approval process specific to the change of control. The license was not transferred. The company holding it was simply sold abroad. And because the license nominally remains in the name of LIA Industries Pte. Ltd., no formal transfer of license was triggered. 

This is the second tier of the governance failure: the disconnect between formal legal title and actual beneficial control. Guyana’s licensing framework does not appear to contain provisions requiring the disclosure or approval of indirect changes of control over license holding entities. The company on the license remains the same; only who owns that company has changed. 

Many jurisdictions have corrected this through what are known as change-of-control provisions in their mining or petroleum legislation. These require that any transaction—whether a direct sale of the license or an indirect acquisition of the controlling interest in the license holder—constitutes a triggering event requiring regulatory notification, review, and in some cases, approval or payment of a transfer fee. 

The absence of such provisions in Guyana creates a dangerous parallel reality: on paper, a State-issued license remains in the hands of the original licensee; in practice, an entirely different set of principals now controls the economic destiny of that resource. 

The implications extend beyond taxation. Questions of beneficial ownership transparency, national security vetting, environmental liability, and regulatory accountability   all hinge on knowing who actually controls a resource asset. If that information can be withheld through offshore corporate structuring, the State is not merely losing revenue—it is losing oversight itself.

“If a company can change hands abroad and automatically retain control of a Guyanese license, then the State has electively relinquished control over who exploits its resources.” — THE PRECIPITATING EDITORIAL ON THE U92 ACQUISITION

III Uranium Is Not Gold. The Governance Stakes Are Higher.

 There is a tendency in resource governance debates to treat all extractive commodities similarly. The Kurupung transaction demands a more differentiated analysis. Uranium is not gold. It is not bauxite. It is not even crude oil, despite that industry’s own considerable governance complexities. 

Uranium is a dual-use material with applications in both civilian energy generation and nuclear weapons development. Its extraction, processing, and trade are subject to international regulatory regimes— including the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards framework—that impose obligations on both states and operators. The identity, affiliations, and security clearances of uranium operators are not merely commercial questions. They are national security questions. 

Guyana enters this sector with what the government has itself acknowledged: no other uranium projects, no established regulatory framework, and no domestic experience with the specific hazards and obligations that uranium extraction entails. That context does not make the resource less valuable—the global nuclear energy renaissance, driven partly by decarbonization commitments, may make Guyanese uranium considerably more valuable over the coming decades. But it does make the governance deficit considerably more dangerous. 

There are four distinct dimensions of risk that Guyana must now navigate simultaneously with respect to Kurupung: 

Radiological and Environmental Risk: Uranium extraction generates radioactive tailings and contaminated water that, if improperly managed, can persist in the environment for centuries. Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency and Geology and Mines Commission must have the technical capacity to monitor, inspect, and enforce environmental standards specific to uranium—a very different challenge from gold or bauxite oversight. 

Geopolitical and Security Risk: The identity of the ultimate beneficial owners of a uranium license matter. International safeguards regimes require states to account for nuclear materials within their territory. If Guyana cannot identify who controls its uranium resource at any given time, it may struggle to meet its international reporting obligations—let alone its national security interests.

Regulatory Capacity Risk: The sector is genuinely new to Guyana. Neither the institutional expertise nor the specialized regulatory instruments required for uranium governance have been established. The country is, in effect, being asked to regulate something it has never encountered before—and it is being asked to do so retroactively, after ownership has already changed hands. 

Fiscal Sovereignty Risk: As with all extractive commodities, uranium’s fiscal contribution to Guyana will depend almost entirely on the quality of the fiscal regime that governs it—including royalties, profit taxes, ring-fencing provisions, and yes, taxes on indirect transfers. If those instruments are not in place before production begins, they become extraordinarily difficult to introduce without triggering investor disputes. 

The window for proactive governance is open. It will not remain so indefinitely. Once exploration advances toward development, and once financial commitments compound, the political economy of reform shifts sharply away from the State. 

1v The Systemic Failure: Oil Was the Warning, Uranium Is the Test 

The U92 acquisition did not occur in a vacuum. It occurred against the backdrop of Guyana’s ongoing—and extensively documented—struggles to capture adequate fiscal returns from its petroleum sector. The country’s oil contracts, negotiated under the Stabroek block regime, have been widely criticized by international fiscal governance experts for royalty rates, cost recovery provisions, and ring-fencing structures that limit the State’s take. These were not the product of malice; they were the product of a negotiating context in which the State had less information, less capacity, and less leverage than its counterparts. 

The pattern matters: resource sectors tend to be governed by the frameworks that existed at the time of the first major transaction, not the frameworks that should have existedBy the time the scale of the asset is understood, the contracts are signed, the precedents are set, and the cost of renegotiation—financial, diplomatic, and political—is prohibitive. 

Guyana is now receiving a second notice. The uranium sector is embryonic. There are no production-stage contracts. There are no entrenched investors with sunk capital claiming sovereign protection for existing arrangements. The cost of reform at this stage is political will and legislative time—considerably cheaper than the cost of reform after the fact. 

The IMF, in its own assessments of developing country resource governance, has consistently flagged indirect transfer taxation as one of the areas where developing countries leave the most revenue on the table. The mechanism is technically understood. The legislative models are available. The question is whether Guyana’s institutions will act on the evidence before the window closes. 

The answer to that question will say something lasting about the country’s capacity to govern its resource wealth in the interest of its citizens—not just in uranium, but in whatever comes next.

THE GLOBAL PRECEDENT — INDIA’S GENERAL ANTI-AVOIDANCE RESPONSE 

When Vodafone Sued India for $2 Billion — and India Rewrote the Law 

In 2012, India’s Supreme Court ruled that the government could not tax Vodafone’s acquisition of an Indian telecom business through a Cayman Islands holding company. The transaction—valued at $11 billion—had been structured to route control of the Indian asset through a foreign entity, placing it outside India’s tax jurisdiction. The Supreme Court agreed with Vodafone. India’s Parliament then amended the Income Tax Act retroactively to assert jurisdiction over indirect transfers of assets whose value is substantially derived from Indian sources. The lesson: waiting for litigation is the most expensive way to reform. Guyana should not need a billion-dollar case to prompt action.

1. What Reform Must Look Like

2. ---

3. Reform in this area is achievable. It is technically understood, internationally precedented, and—at this stage of Guyana’s extractive sector development—politically feasible. The following measures constitute a minimum legislative and regulatory agenda, not an aspirational wish list.

01 LEGISLATE INDIRECT TRANSFER TAXATION 

Amend the Income Tax Act to assert Guyana’s fiscal jurisdiction over gains derived from the indirect transfer of assets whose value is principally derived from Guyanese resources. The “principal value test”—requiring that at least 50% or 75% of the entity’s value be attributable to local resource assets—is the standard adopted by Tanzania, Uganda, India, and others. This closes the Singapore-Singapore sale scenario entirely. 

02 MANDATE CHANGE-OF-CONTROL NOTIFICATION AND APPROVAL Amend the Mines Act and relevant petroleum legislation to require that any change in the ultimate beneficial ownership of a license-holding entity—direct or indirect—constitutes a triggering event requiring notification to the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and, for strategic resources, Ministerial approval. This closes the “same license, new owners” loophole. 

03 ESTABLISH BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP REGISTERS FOR LICENCE HOLDERS 

All companies holding prospecting or mining licenses in Guyana must file and maintain current beneficial ownership 

information, updated within 30 days of any change of control. This registry should be accessible to relevant regulatory bodies and, where national security is implicated, to intelligence agencies. Beneficial ownership transparency is the prerequisite for all other oversight. 

04 DEVELOP A DEDICATED URANIUM REGULATORY FRAMEWORK The Kurupung project cannot be adequately governed under generic mining legislation. A sector-speci5c regulatory framework for uranium—covering radiological safety, tailings management, IAEA safeguards compliance, export controls, and security vetting of operators—must be developed before exploration advances toward development stage. Guyana should engage directly with the IAEA’s technical cooperation 

programmes to build this capacity. 

05 CONDUCT AN IMMEDIATE FISCAL REGIME REVIEW FOR THE URANIUM SECTOR 

Before any development licenses are considered for Kurupung, the Guyana Revenue Authority and Ministry of Finance should commission an independent fiscal regime analysis for uranium, benchmarking royalty rates, profit taxes, ring-fencing 

provisions, and stability clause frameworks against comparable jurisdictions. This analysis should be public and should precede —not follow—any negotiation with the license holder. 

06 REVIEW ALL EXISTING LICENCES FOR UNDISCLOSED INDIRECT TRANSFERS 

The U92 acquisition is unlikely to be the only instance of indirect transfer affecting Guyanese resource licenses. A comprehensive audit of all active prospecting and mining licenses, verifying current beneficial ownership against original applicant identity, would reveal the scope of the problem and inform legislative priorities.

— ◆ — 

There is a phrase that recurs in resource governance literature: “the resource curse is not inevitable—it is a policy choice Countries do not become cursed by oil or gold or uranium. They become cursed by the 

institutional arrangements they fail to build before extraction begins, and by the political environments that make reform feel impossible once the money starts =owing. 

Guyana is not cursed. It is, in fact, one of the few countries in the world that has received clear, repeated, well-documented warnings about the governance gaps in its extractive sector—and still has the time and political space to address them. The oil sector’s fiscal architecture is imperfect but established; reforming it now is difficult. The uranium sector has no such entrenched architecture yet. The cost of building it correctly today is a fraction of the cost of renegotiating it under duress tomorrow. 

The U92 acquisition is not primarily a story about one company, one project, or one transaction. It is a story about what a State owes its citizens when it grants away the right to their natural inheritance. That inheritance does not belong to whoever is clever enough to structure around the rules. It belongs to the people of Guyana. The only question is whether their government will act in time to protect it. 

— ◆ — 

RESOURCE SOVEREIGNTY & GOVERNANCE REVIEW · EDITORIAL BOARD · MAY 2026 · ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

OPINION & EDITORIAL 

THE PUBLIC RECORD 

MAY 2026   EDITORIAL 

Mr. President, the People Are Still Waiting 

Eight years of oil. Sixty years of independence. And more than half the country still lives in poverty. No speech, however soaring, can paper over that arithmetic. 

THE EDITORS · OPINION 

There is a particular cruelty to eloquence deployed in the presence of deprivation. President Dr. Irfaan Ali’s address on the eve of Guyana’s 60th Independence Anniversary was, by the standards of political oratory, a polished performance. It had rhythm. It had poetry. It had the grand architecture of a speech designed to be quoted, clipped, and circulated. What it did not have — what it conspicuously, almost defiantly, lacked — was an honest reckoning with the country it was delivered in. 

The oil beneath Guyana’s waters is, as the President declared, the property of the people. He is right about that. Which is precisely why the people deserve a government that speaks to them plainly about why, after eight years of oil production and historic revenue windfalls, the majority of Guyanese remain poor.

58% 

POVERTY RATE — AFTER 8 YEARS OF OIL 

Guyana became a major oil producer in 2016. By any credible measurement, the majority of its citizens have yet to feel that transformation in their daily lives. This is not a statistic to be dismissed with a road metaphor.

Let us grant the President his roads and bridges. Infrastructure is real. Construction is visible. Progress can be photographed and inaugurated. But a road that connects a community still mired in poverty, still without reliable electricity, still without clean running water, still without a functioning primary health care system — that road does not connect destinies. It connects misery to more misery, only faster. 

The President told Guyanese that schools “teach children to dream.” But dreams require a foundation. They require a teacher who is paid on time and trained well. They require a school building that does not Nood in the rainy season. They require a child who arrived that morning having eaten. The gap between the rhetoric of dreaming and the reality of classrooms in the hinterland and poor coastal communities is not a gap that poetic language can bridge. 

Hospitals, the President, “affirmed that every Guyanese life has worth“. A beautiful sentiment. And yet Guyanese continue to travel abroad for procedures unavailable at home. The chronically ill navigate a public health system stretched beyond its limits. Maternal mortality remains a scandal. Drug shortages are routine. If hospitals affirm the worth of lives, someone should tell the hospitals. 

The US$100 million STEM program announced in partnership with ExxonMobil deserves scrutiny, not celebration. A knowledge economy built in partnership with the very extractive corporation profiting most handsomely from Guyana’s resources is not a bold vision of sovereignty — it is a continuation of dependency, dressed in the language of innovation. Who negotiated those terms? What does Guyana own of that pro gramme? These are not hostile questions; they are the minimum due diligence a nation owes itself. 

“One Guyana does not mean we are all the same — it means we are all equal.” If equality is the standard, Mr. President, then the standard has not been met“.

The President’s “One Guyana” formulation is ideologically convenient precisely because it asks nothing of those in power. It asks citizens to look past ethnic division, past regional disparity, past historical grievance — and to trust that the government is building toward something better.

But unity without accountability is not unity. It is compliance. And the test of whether a government is governing “for all” is not the number of projects announced, but the number of lives materially improved. 

THE LITANY THE SPEECH DID NOT ADDRESS

01 Poverty at 58% after eight years of oil revenue

No policy explanation. No timeline for reduction. No accountability for why transformation has not reached the majority of citizens who were promised it would. 

02 Cost of living crushing ordinary households

Food prices, fuel costs, and basic necessities continue to strain families whose wages have not kept pace with the oil economy’s growth. The GDP numbers do not eat breakfast. 

03 Corruption and procurement opacity 

Billions in oil revenue flow through government contracting processes with limited independent oversight. The question of who benefits — and who awards the contracts — demands a direct answer, not a sermon about collective patrimony. 

04 Healthcare infrastructure in crisis 

Beyond the ribbon-cutting of new hospital buildings, the functional capacity of Guyana’s health system — staffing, medication supply chains, specialist availability — remains critically deficient for most citizens outside Georgetown. 

05 Hinterland and interior communities left behind

The President’s vision of a child in any region having the same opportunity is belied by the stark reality of Indigenous and interior communities who lack basic services that coastal Guyanese take for granted. Equal rights require equal investment, not equal rhetoric. 

06 Oil contract transparency and sovereign wealth management 

The terms of Guyana’s production-sharing agreements remain poorly understood by the public. “Spending with purpose and saving with discipline” are phrases — not policies. Where are the independent audits? The parliamentary oversight? The citizen dashboards? 

None of this is to say that Guyana has not built things. It has. None of it suggests that government is without genuine intent. Perhaps it has intent in abundance. The problem is not intent — it is delivery. It is the distance between the podium and the yard, between the micro phone and the market stall, between the speech and the school that still floods. 

At sixty years of independence, Guyana deserves a leader who will stand before its people not with poetry, but with plans. Not with vision, but with verifiable targets. Not with the confidence of someone who believes the oil has already won, but with the humility of someone who knows the work has barely started. The test of independence is not whether a president can deliver a stirring address. It is whether the people he addresses can afford to eat, to heal, to educate their children, and to believe — on evidence, not faith — that tomorrow will be better than today. 

The oil is the peoples. Mr. President so is the reckoning. 

“March not with arrogance, but with confidence,” the President urged. We would add “march not with rhetoric, but with results.” 

— The Editor