Venezuela, Guyana: the mysteries, intrigues, of power

/0 Comments/in , , /by
592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Venezuela, Guyana: the mysteries, intrigues, of power

OPINION BY: GHK LALL– September 2026

Imperial power.  It certainly can be multilayered.  Deep and complex.  A mystery in operation; fascinating it is expression, projection.  Take developments in Venezuela that are already well underway.  Consider developments pending in Guyana, that could go another way, send shivers up and down the spine of those in charge here.  Venezuela first.

Senor Alejandro Betancourt.  Only in the American firmament can a man go from a person of interest to a partner making possible massive reciprocal interests.  How does a man make that long journey, take that giant jump, from alleged law violator to oil intriguer and partner?  Just so there’s no mistake, the man spotlighted today is Senor Alejandro Betancourt and not that long ago former Venezuelan President, Romulo Betancourt.  Both the ancient and modern Betancourt seem to have a special love for America.  God bless America!  May God be merciful to them and me.

News coming to light highlights the role of Senor Betancourt in the removal of Nicolas Maduro.  Recall that he was under American law enforcement radar at the time.  Recall that he was a prime beneficiary of lucrative contracts under both the Chavez and Maduro regimes.  But this Venezuela billionaire bolichico -young master of the universe became a partner and instrument in an oil setup that essentially gifts a quarter of Venezuela’s sacred national treasure to America. 

In this deal of millennia, it is so good that its terms have to be kept away from Venezuelans.Imagine that arrangement.  A man grabs a quarter of the family house and all the riches in it, and the family is clueless of what its members get.  A big uncle, however, is a major contributor to the deal.

My impression is that even that formidable lady, she of nine lives durability, Senora Delcy Rodrigues was a secondary player in American-Venezuelan maneuvers.  Alejandro Betancourt was the main man; now stands as a tower of power in Venezuela.  From my own calling, I believe in the power of correction, redemption, and reconciliation.  But even for one like me, this is mindboggling and breathtaking.  Though not without precedent.  Remember, it’s America.  Only permanent interests.  I see the Pentagon featuring prominently; that says it all.

From Venezuela, what to say about Guyana?  What’s there to say?  I start simple.  American wants Mohamed.  One will do.  Two is better

Alejandro Betancourt and Azzrudin Mohamed

Looking at recent developments in Venezuela, intuition grows stronger that Azruddin Mohamed can be Guyana’s Alejandro Betancourt.  The parallels are eerie.  Mohamed a local billionaire.  Like Betancourt.  Mohamed a man under the U.S. microscope.  Like Betancourt.  Mohamed a man that was close to the seat of power in Guyana.  Like Betancourt in Caracas.  Mohamed a man on whom the U.S. wants to lay hands, ask some questions.  Like Betancourt of Venezuela at one time.  I believe that the U.S. wants what is in the Mohamed’s heads (two).  The Guyanese can use their heads like the Venezuelan billionaire and end up on the side of the righteous.  They are different kinds.

So, what will it be for the local man?  I wouldn’t fight extradition.  I would visit the U.S. Embassy and say: I am ready.  Get out the cuffs.  Let’s get down to business.  Let’s start talking.  Alejandro Betancourt did that, and a president was removed.  A runner, a corrupter, a stealer and a liar.  How about those in Caracas?  Just find the equivalent parties in Georgetown.  The human pickings are plenty.  Try this other thought.  Is there any Guyanese-in the Offices of the President, Vice President, Prime Minister, Attorney General, the Guyana Police, the Guyana Taxman, the Guyana Prosecution Office-who really believes that the Americans pursue the two Guyanese for some chickenfeed gold smuggling, tax evasion, and money laundering?  If there is one such Guyanese, he is stupider than I ever could be.

Wrap-up time.  Venezuela’s Betancourt dealt himself a fine hand, pleaded his case, emerged a winner.  He even gave up a brother in Maduro, a fellow caudillo.  Mr. Azruddin Mohamed’s table is before him.  He has good cards.  He went high and tight for decades.  There’s value in what’s in his head.  Bridgetown was the teaser.  New York or Miami could be the sweetener.  Thus, the mysteries and sophistications of imperial power in action. 

If I were part of the PPP hierarchy, I would seek asylum somewhere safe.  Those Blackhawk helicopters could be hovering.  The bell tolls.  For thee in the PPP brethren up there.  Even the freest rein to Exxon could be reduced to mere smoke.

 

Guyana’s 39.8% Share: Temporary Gain, Lasting Questions

/0 Comments/in , , /by
592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Guyana’s 39.8% Share: Temporary Gain, Lasting Questions

OPINION BY: Dr. Vincent Adams September 2026

39.8% profit share means Ring Fencing but short-lived with many questions – looks fishy! – Dr. Adams

There has been an array of public missives about the welcomed oil profit share to Guyana being more than tripled to 39.8%, or approximately G$8 Billion (B) per day at the current production rate and oil price. However, what seems to be missed is that this is unadulterated ring-fencing, proving that contrary to the Govt’s falsity, the contract does not disallow ring-fencing, as yours truly stressed in letter “Nothing in oil contract bars ring-fencing” published in the broad media including Kaieteur News (KN) June 14, 2025 edition.

That was the good news, but something seems fishy going on here with lots of questions, signaling that the 39.8% is most likely short-lived as evident by the fact that the numbers do not add up; and by HE President Ali’s head spinning convoluted press conference.

 There should be no doubts whatsoever that Exxon notified President Ali of the increase before it made the news, and it goes without saying that any Leader would be jumping up and down shouting from the rooftops grabbing credit and scoring political points for such good news. However, beyond belief, it had to take weeks of public pressure to force Dr. Ali into doing the normal— and when he did, his uneasiness was most noticeable, when, instead of a gleeful announcement— he inexplicably first went on the defensive, taking great pains to lecture us on how the profit share formula works, and being emphatic that the contract was not changed to bring about the increase. What was this uncalled-for defensive posture about?

Ali’s strange behavior begs the question: was this just a shrewd business move by Exxon to boost its stock price and financial leverage which caught Ali by surprise, embarrassing and throwing him under the bus, since his Govt has been berating and making enemies of all and sundry who dare to advocate ring-fencing and —or renegotiations? Ask Glen Lall who made fierce fighting for ring-fencing and renegotiations his daily ritual to the nation.     

The ring-fencing and renegotiations question:

Most revealing was Dr. Ali’s disorienting answer to a question from Davina Bagot of KN about whether he will take this opportunity to renegotiate the contract to ensure the profit share remains at 39.8%. Amazingly not prepared for such an expectedly inevitable question, Ali resorted to confusingly speak from both sides of his mouth that he is having “internal discussions” and seeking expert advice how to “get greater benefits” while at the same time spouting his old song and dance of “sanctity of contract”.

First, despite what VP Jagdeo believes, Guyanese are not stupid, and know fully well that Exxon is the Govt’s only advisor and controller, so the “discussions” start and end how Exxon wants it. Second, how could the President still not comprehend that “greater benefits” beyond ring-fencing can only come with renegotiations which he and his Govt pledge not to do? Third, this is the same Ali and oil czar Jagdeo, who vow to never renegotiate because of “contract sanctity” and cowardly to even raise it with Exxon, though allowed for in Article 32 of the contract; and despite their manifesto promise and their rabid admonition that it is the worst contract ever, so, renegotiation will be of highest priority when in office. 

The President now finds himself in a bind knowing that this increase is temporary and would be a hard sell to the people; thus, to soften the blow of this bad news, he slickly comes up with fancy talk about “discussions with experts” for “path forward to get greater benefits”. Notwithstanding Exxon being his only expert and advisor, the President is still advised that there is nothing more to discuss nor think about, since the precedent for ring-fencing has now been set, whether or not motivated by Exxon’s financial interests, and must stay in place. Any drawing of a line at the end of any project is the definition of ring-fencing; so, there can be no going back!

Moreso, the President must demand that this new dispensation be retroactively dated back to the first ring-fencing point in 2022 when the first project (Liza 1) was truly paid off, along with recovery of the 39.8% worth of USD $B owed to the country since that time.

Costs do not add up:

Ring fencing means each project having its own independent cost bank (all monies charged to that project) and no use of revenues from any project to offset costs in another project. Despite the contract not barring ring-fencing, the Govt gives Exxon a free rein to mix-up all of the revenues and spending into one bucket or “cost bank” being filled with the daily running costs from every project including the USD $55 B costs announced on July 31, 2026, to have been paid off for the 1st 7 projects; but most conspicuously suspicious is that there is no mention that  the paid off cost bank also includes all costs running into USD $B for drilling exploration and appraisal wells and other costs for projects 8 & 9 already submitted to the Govt early this year for approval. 

It takes years of drilling exploration and appraisal wells and other activities such as preparing Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) before applying for Govt approvals. For example, the Liza 1 was discovered in 2015, but it took years of drilling before discovery and over one year afterwards to apply for permits. Similarly, since applications for permits for projects 8 & 9 were submitted early in 2026, there had to have been many USD $B charged to the cost bank at least starting in 2025 and before for those two projects.

The quandary facing the President and maybe why he has been so bashful, is that if there is no ring-fencing, how could there be a claim that the cost bank of USD $55 B was paid off for only the 1st 7 projects, when projects 8 & 9 have been also charging their costs to this same cost bank.

The Govt must explain how is this possible, and come clean with what are the costs left in the cost bank for projects 8 & 9, other projects in the works, and the cumulative costs carried over every month above the 75% cost oil.

 It gets more confusing when the President and Minister Bharrat acclaim that the cost bank includes expenses for both capital (Capex) and operating (Opex) equivalent to the 75% cost oil; but something else kept quiet is that the 75% cost oil is not the maximum deducted recoverable costs, for all costs above the 75% are carried over into the next month, month after month, into the cost bank.

In any case, if the Opex is 20 barrels oil out of each 100 barrels according to the President, it means that the Capex accounts for the other 55 or 73.3% of the 75 barrels of cost oil or cost bank. Thence, the USD $55 B supposedly paid off for the 1st 7 projects will have been proportionally divided into USD $40 B for Capex and $15 B for Opex. However, the Field Development Plans (FDPs) which are the heart of the projects, document a total estimated Capex of USD $61 B.

With Exxon’s project management expertise, it is hard to digest that their estimated Capex could be a whopping 52% higher than the actual costs, unless the Guyana Govt happens to be managing their projects. This looks like something fishy going on here with the people’s money that must be explained. 

 Editors Note:

This opinion piece  raises significant questions about the recent announcement that Guyana’s share of petroleum revenues has risen to approximately 39.8%, reportedly equivalent to about GY $8 billion daily at prevailing production levels and oil prices. Its central contention is that the increase reflects, in practical effect, project-level ring-fencing—despite the Government’s longstanding position that the Stabroek Block Production Sharing Agreement does not permit it.

The writer argues that, once the recoverable costs of the first seven developments have been satisfied, revenue from those projects is no longer being used to recover costs associated with other developments.

If so, this would resemble ring-fencing a system under which each petroleum project carries and recovers its own costs, rather than permitting costs from new projects to be recovered against production revenues from older, already-producing projects.

The article identifies several issues requiring clear, documented answers from Government and the Stabroek Block contractors:

♦ Whether the 39.8% share results from a formal change in cost-recovery treatment, a project-specific accounting outcome, or a temporary condition caused by the timing of expenditures and production.

♦ Whether the announced approximately US $55 billion in recovered costs relates strictly to the first seven projects, and precisely what categories of expenditure it includes.

♦ Whether exploration, appraisal, engineering, environmental, pre-development, drilling, procurement, and other costs associated with proposed Projects 8 and 9 have been charged to the existing Stabroek Block cost bank.

♦ The present balance of unrecovered costs, broken down by project, activity, and month, including all expenditures carried forward because recoverable costs exceeded the 75% monthly cost-oil ceiling.

♦ Whether the stated cost bank contains both capital expenditure (Capex) and operating expenditure (Opex), and what amount is attributable to each category.

♦ How the reported US $55 billion recovered-cost figure compares with the capital-cost estimates contained in the approved Field Development Plans for the first seven projects.

♦ Whether Government intends to preserve the 39.8% share through a negotiated project-level ring-fencing arrangement, and whether it will seek a review under Article 32 of the petroleum agreement.

Under the Stabroek Block agreement, up to 75 % of petroleum produced in a month may be allocated to “cost oil,” subject to the agreement’s rules, while the remaining “profit oil” is shared equally between Guyana and the contractor group. Because Guyana also receives a  2% royalty calculated on gross production, the country’s effective share rises materially when recoverable costs fall below the maximum cost-oil allocation. The exact share therefore depends on actual production, realized oil prices, royalty treatment, recoverable costs, and any carried-forward cost balance.

The 39.8% figure should therefore be accompanied by  transparent public accounting. This should include the calculation methodology, the period to which it applies, the assumed production volumes and oil price, the cost-oil percentage actually claimed, the amount of unrecovered costs carried forward, and a project-by-project reconciliation of costs and revenues.

Without those disclosures, the public cannot determine whether the increase represents a durable improvement in Guyana’s take, a temporary accounting outcome, or an arrangement that effectively applies ring-fencing to only part of the development portfolio.

The issue is not merely technical. It goes to whether Guyana is receiving the maximum benefit from a finite national resource, whether the country’s petroleum accounting is sufficiently transparent, and whether the Government’s public explanations are consistent with the actual treatment of costs across the Stabroek Block.

For more on the agreement:   https://petroleum.gov.gy/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Petroleum-Agreement-Oct-7-2016_2.pdf 

Three Spines, One Bill: Making Sense of the Congress Place Tax Fight

/0 Comments/in , , /by
592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

 Three Spines, One Bill: Making Sense of the Congress Place Tax Fight

The 592 Guardian Editorial Board

Georgetown’s City Council has cleared the way for the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) to settle a rates and taxes bill on Congress Place, its Sophia headquarters, for roughly $30 million — against a debt that Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo says had climbed past $6.7 billion. Attorney General Anil Nandlall has called the decision “absolutely illegal” and invited any taxpayer to sue. A reader pushed back on us directly: the council has non-PNCR members too, nothing happens there without other parties in the room, and if bias is the standard, then every tax authority that ever cut anyone a break; the GRA included — should be just as exposed.

That challenge deserves a straight answer rather than a reflexive defense of the Attorney General. Having read the record closely, our view is that the reader is right about one thing and wrong about a bigger one  and that Nandlall’s own framing overreaches in a way worth naming plainly. There are three separate legal questions tangled together in this story, and they don’t all stand or fall together. Separating them is the only way to see which parts of the argument survive contact with the facts.

SPINE ONE: DID THE COUNCIL ACTUALLY HAVE THE POWER TO DO THIS?

This is the most basic question, and it is Nandlall’s strongest ground. A city council is not a private business free to strike whatever deal it likes with a debtor. It is a creature of statute — its power to set, collect, and adjust rates and taxes comes entirely from the Municipal and District Councils Act. It can only do what that Act allows.

The trouble is that Georgetown’s own mayor, Alfred Mentore, could not say with confidence which legal instrument actually authorizes this specific write-down. In comments to the Guyana Chronicle, he pointed to two different, competing possibilities: a 2024 “institutional rates” policy the PNCR-led council passed for political party properties, or a separate 2021 High Court ruling that found it “unconscionable” for the council to charge compound interest instead of simple interest on old debts.

A public official who cannot say which law authorized a multi-billion-dollar write-down has, in effect, conceded the illegality question before anyone gets to court.

That distinction is not a technicality. If the true basis is the 2021 compound-interest ruling, the council would be applying a general principle of fairness that any debtor — PNCR-linked or not— could equally claim, and Nandlall’s illegality argument gets much weaker. If the true basis is the 2024 institutional rates policy, the question becomes whether that policy was validly made in the first place.

Either way, a mayor unable to name the operative authority for a decision of this size is not a small detail. It is the story.

SPINE TWO: WAS THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS TAINTED BY CONFLICT OF INTEREST?

The reader’s strongest point is procedural: the council is not made up solely of the PNCR. Other parties sit there too, and nothing passes without going through the room. That is true, and it matters — but the record shows it does not do the work the reader wants it to do.

The only clear vote on record is the 2024 institutional rates policy, and it was not a consensus decision. It was laid before the council at a statutory meeting and immediately opposed by the PPP-C’s 11 councillors, who said they had not been consulted and were blindsided by how quickly it moved. It passed anyway, because the PNCR held the numbers where it counted — including on the council’s Finance Committee, where PPP-C held a single seat against a PNCR majority. Three councillors — Alfonso De Armas, Patricia Chase-Greene and Steven Jacobs  publicly rejected the idea of waiving taxes for political parties at all, with Chase-Greene, a former mayor, arguing every party should pay exactly as ordinary citizens do.

This is why “other parties were in the room” does not neutralise a bias claim. The legal principle at stake — nemo judex in causa sua, no one may be a judge in their own cause — is not about whether dissent existed. It is about whether the body that controls the outcome is the same body that benefits from it. Losing a vote you were blindsided by is not participation in a fair process; on this record, it is evidence the process wasn’t one.

SPINE THREE: WHO ACTUALLY GOT TREATED UNEQUALLY?

This is where the reader’s underlying instinct — that selective tax relief is normal and everyone does it deserves to be taken seriously, because it identifies the one comparison that is genuinely apples-to-apples. Nandlall’s line that “any taxpayer can file legal proceedings tomorrow” overstates this. Guyanese law generally requires a claimant to show sufficient personal interest in a decision, not just general public concern, so a random ratepayer with no connection to the debt is not obviously best placed to sue.

But the council’s own paperwork hands a much stronger comparator to a specific class of person. When the council implemented the 2021 compound-interest ruling retroactively to 1997 this past July, it built in a carve-out: anyone who had already paid off their debt calculated under the old, harsher compound-interest method would not benefit from the correction. In plain terms — pay on time under the old rules, and you get nothing; owe a fortune and stay unpaid long enough, and the council will eventually adjust the rules in your favour. That is not a hypothetical the reader raised for effect. It is the council’s own written policy, and it is the one place in this whole dispute where a specific, identifiable group of taxpayers can point to differential treatment by the same authority, under the same policy, without needing to prove anyone’s state of mind.

WHERE THAT LEAVES THE ARGUMENT

SPINE WHAT IT REQUIRES WHERE IT STANDS
Vires -( lawful power) Council must point to a specific statutory basis Unresolved -two competing bases, unclear which applies
Bias -natural justice Decision makers must not be judges in their own cause  Strong -PNCR passes without PPP-C  Consensus
Discriminatory application comprables treated differently under the same rule strong but narrower – early payers excluded by council’s own ruling

None of this makes Nandlall’s “absolutely illegal” a settled legal fact  that is for a court to decide, and his “any taxpayer” framing reaches further than the law on standing likely allows. But it also does not make the reader’s comparison to routine GRA concessions hold. A revenue officer using statutory discretion Parliament gave them is not the same thing as a governing majority relieving a debt owed by the organisation that majority answers to, then writing a rule that specifically excludes the citizens who paid on time. The GRA analogy fails not because concessions are always suspect, but because it erases the one fact that makes this case different: who was sitting in judgment, and who they were judging.

— The Board

Cameras Are More Than Silent Witnesses

/0 Comments/in , , /by
592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Cameras Are More Than Silent Witnesses

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar September 2026

Guyana’s conversation about public-security cameras has too often remained at the shallowest level: where cameras are mounted, how many are installed, and whether footage might be available after a robbery, shooting, accident or other crime.

But modern surveillance systems, when properly designed and responsibly managed, can be far more than passive recording devices. They can become active public-safety tools; helping police identify wanted suspects, trace vehicles, locate missing people, detect violence, secure major events, protect vulnerable citizens and preserve evidence that can stand up in court.

The first day of London’s 2026 Notting Hill Carnival offers a timely example. At one of Europe’s largest street festivals, the Metropolitan Police combined officers on the ground, portable walk-through metal detectors, intelligence-led operations and live facial-recognition technology. By Sunday evening, of 169 reported arrests ,police said facial recognition had helped lead to 29 arrests and the identification of 26 registered sex offenders in attendance. Three were arrested for alleged breaches of their conditions.

The point is not that Guyana should automatically copy London, deploy facial recognition everywhere, or sacrifice privacy in the name of security. Facial recognition remains controversial, including because of legitimate concerns about privacy, accuracy, possible bias, data retention and misuse by state agencies.

But neither should Guyanese dismiss surveillance systems as little more than decorative poles, occasional CCTV footage, or a tool useful only after tragedy has occurred. London’s experience illustrates their potential versatility when technology is carefully deployed, integrated into an operational plan, linked to trained personnel and supported by a rapid response.

A camera on its own cannot stop a crime. It cannot make an arrest, recover a weapon, interview a witness or successfully prosecute an offender. But it can alert authorities to danger, help identify a suspect in real time, guide patrols to an unfolding incident, trace a suspect’s route, verify an alibi, locate a stolen vehicle or provide crucial evidence in court.

At a crowded public event, cameras can help security officials spot abandoned items, detect unusual crowd movement, identify access points that need reinforcement and direct emergency services where they are needed. Along major roadways, systems equipped with number-plate recognition can help trace stolen or suspect vehicles, identify dangerous driving patterns and support accident investigations. Around schools, hospitals, markets, transport hubs and government buildings, they can strengthen deterrence and shorten response time when serious incidents occur.

Guyana, which continues to confront violent crime, road fatalities, trafficking concerns, domestic violence, robberies and the security pressures that accompany rapid economic growth, should have an informed national discussion about what its surveillance infrastructure can—and cannot—do.

That discussion must begin with transparency . The public should know how many state-linked cameras are actually functional; where they are located; whether they are monitored live; which agency controls the systems; who is authorized to access footage; how long recordings are kept; and how often the footage has assisted in arrests, prosecutions, missing-person cases, emergency response or the recovery of stolen property.

Government and law-enforcement agencies should also publish regular performance reports. Not general assurances. Not ceremonial announcements about new installations. The public needs measurable results: the number of incidents detected, the number of investigations assisted, arrests linked to footage, prosecutions supported, camera downtime, response times and the costs of operating and maintaining the system.

If advanced tools such as automated number-plate recognition or facial recognition are contemplated, the standards must be higher still. Their use should be governed by clear legislation, defined purposes, strict limits, independent oversight, human review before enforcement action, secure handling of data, reliable audit logs and meaningful remedies for abuse or error.

Surveillance must never become an instrument for monitoring political opponents, intimidating citizens, profiling communities or conducting unaccountable fishing expeditions. Public safety cannot be secured by giving any administration unchecked power to watch the public.The same technology that can help locate a violent offender can be abused if no one is required to explain how it operates or answer for misconduct.

That is why Guyana must reject the false choice between security and civil liberties. A mature system can protect both.

The real standard should be simple:

Effective technology, trained personnel, rapid response and transparent oversight lead to safer communities and public trust.

The world is moving beyond the era in which cameras merely recorded images for later review. Properly used, they can provide timely intelligence, guide police resources, support victims and strengthen the administration of justice.

Guyana should not be left behind. But it should also not move blindly. The country needs surveillance systems that work, evidence that proves they work, and laws and oversight strong enough to ensure that they serve the people rather than threaten them.

 

 

When The Guyana Marketing  Corporation Starts Selling Imported Chicken , Who Is Marketing Guyana?

/0 Comments/in , , /by
592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

When The Guyana Marketing  Corporation Starts Selling Imported Chicken , Who Is Marketing Guyana?

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar September 2026

There is something deeply wrong when an institution created to develop markets for Guyanese agriculture appears to be selling imported agricultural products to Guyanese consumers.

The photograph now circulating publicly shows what appears to be imported Brazilian chicken being distributed through an operation associated with the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC). The packaging is visibly in Portuguese, including the words “Frango sem Miúdos” — chicken without giblets.

That should prompt more than a casual glance. It should prompt a very simple question: When did the Guyana Marketing Corporation become a retailer and distributor of imported chicken?

 A MANDATE REWRITTEN WITHOUT NOTICE

According to GMC’s own website, its mandate is remarkably clear. The Corporation states that in 1985 there was a deliberate policy change resulting in the total cessation of its buying and selling operations. GMC was transformed into an institution focused on market facilitation for the private sector, local market development, market research, market intelligence, post-harvest technology, and the development and export of non-traditional agricultural produce.

Its current mission is even more explicit: “Facilitating and coordinating the development of quality non-traditional agricultural produce for export.” 

So what are we looking at today? If GMC is now importing chicken and retailing it, we have to ask whether the Corporation’s role has quietly been rewritten without the public being told.

FACILITATION IS NOT RETAIL

There may be a legitimate government reason for temporarily importing chicken. Recent government statements say imported chicken was intended to address temporary supply shortages and stabilize prices while protecting local poultry producers. The New GMC was reported as facilitating those imports.

But facilitating an emergency market intervention is one thing. Becoming a retailer of imported chicken is another. The distinction matters. GMC’s own advisory service says its job includes helping farmers understand market requirements, market-entry requirements, labelling, new markets, and the promotion of local produce.

WHY IS THIS CHICKEN NOT LABELLED IN ENGLISH?

That brings us to the second issue visible in the photograph: why is this chicken not labelled in English? This is not merely an aesthetic complaint about packaging.

Guyana’s Government Analyst–Food and Drug Department has previously warned importers, wholesalers and retailers that food products labelled in a foreign language should not be imported or sold on the local market, citing the Food and Drug Regulations’ labelling provisions under Regulation 18, which require label declarations to be in English.

The U.S. International Trade Administration’s current Guyana market guidance likewise states that all product labels must be in English, referencing Guyana’s labelling standards for pre-packaged foods.

Therefore, if the chicken shown in this photograph is being sold to Guyanese consumers through GMC, the public deserves an explanation.

Chicken packaging labeled in Portuguese at Mon Repos market.

♦Was the product properly approved for the Guyanese market?

♦Was an English-language label attached or provided?

♦Who imported it?

♦Who is the importer of record?

♦Who is responsible for ensuring compliance?

♦And why is a government agricultural marketing corporation involved in retailing it?

These are not hostile questions. They are accountability questions.

THE SIGNAL THIS SENDS TO GUYANESE FARMERS

Guyana says it wants to become food secure. It says it wants to expand agriculture. It says it wants farmers to produce more. It says it wants to develop agro-processing and export markets.

Then what message does it send to the poultry farmer when a government corporation established to support agricultural marketing is helping put imported chicken on the domestic market?

Government intervention may sometimes be necessary to protect consumers from excessive prices or temporary shortages. But such intervention must be surgical, transparent and temporary — not allowed to become a permanent substitute for fixing domestic production, storage, processing and distribution.

A government agency established to market Guyanese agriculture ends up marketing imported agriculture to Guyanese people. That is not agricultural transformation. That is managed dependency wearing an agricultural label.

 And there is another irony. GMC’s own website says the Corporation’s Guyana Shop was established to provide a platform for local agro-processors to market their products.

That is precisely what a public agricultural marketing institution should be doing: finding markets for the farmer, opening doors for the agro-processor, helping Guyanese products meet standards, building export capacity, and making “Made in Guyana, Grown in Guyana” mean something commercially. Not competing with the very producers it was established to help.

THE QUESTION THAT REMAINS

The question isn’t whether Guyanese consumers deserve reasonably priced chicken. Of course they do. The question is whether GMC is still doing the job Guyana created it to do.

If the government has deliberately expanded GMC’s mandate, tell the country. If this is merely a temporary emergency intervention, tell the country how long it will last and what safeguards protect local poultry producers. And if imported chicken can be sold through a government agricultural marketing institution without proper English labelling, the public is entitled to know why.

This board sees a possible mission drift. And when an institution stops doing the job it was created to do, the public has every right to ask: Who changed the mandate — and who gave them permission?

TWO PARADOXES WORTH NAMING

GMC is a public corporation with a distinct mandate: market Guyana’s products. Instead, we see it marketing imported chicken. Who flipped the script?

And there is a second, larger irony that has driven much of the public reaction to this photograph. Guyana has been described as self-sufficient in food production. That claim and this image cannot both be true in the way each has been presented. The public is entitled to ask which account is accurate — and who is responsible for the gap between the two.

Compounding the anomaly, the imported product is reported to be selling at a price below that of the locally produced chicken it is meant to supplement, not replace.

Too much tomfoolery.

The Vetting That Never Was: How Guyana’s Housing Ministry Manufactured Trust It Never Verified

/0 Comments/in , , /by
 592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

The Vetting That Never Was: How Guyana’s Housing Ministry Manufactured Trust It Never Verified

OPINION BY: Editor —592 Guardian          

On May 20, 2024, President Irfaan Ali stood inside a freshly built two-bedroom home in Leonora, West Coast Demerara, and expressed his satisfaction with what he saw. Housing Minister Collin Croal, who accompanied him, posted the visit to Facebook with evident pride: stainless steel security doors, fire-resistant insulation, a first home built in seven days. The tour, Croal wrote, was led by “Modular Builds Guyana Inc.’s Director of Projects and Construction, Mr. Hardeep Singh, and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. William Grant.”

Two years later, that same company is at the centre of allegations that it defrauded four Guyanese clients of a combined $145 million. Singh is reported to have fled to the United Kingdom. Modular Build Guyana has denied the allegations as “completely false” and has threatened legal action against the outlet that reported them, but has not addressed any of the four clients’ specific claims.

It is the second such case this year. A separate contractor, Omar Malik, and his company DreamVu Homes, received a contract directly through the Housing Ministry to build dozens of units under the government’s Young Professional Homes initiative. Payments were financed through mortgages at local commercial banks — approved, the Ministry itself acknowledges, after it had approved Malik as the contractor. Malik has since fled the jurisdiction, leaving roughly two dozen young professionals servicing mortgage debt on homes that were never finished.

Confronted with mounting public anger over both cases, the Ministry’s position has been consistent: that the burden of vetting a contractor lies with the citizen, not the state that introduced them to one.

Two cases, two different failures — both traced to the Ministry

Modular Builds Guyana Inc. Four clients allege they collectively advanced $145 million to the company after encountering its representatives at the Guyana Building Expo, a state-organized event. One advanced $28 million for four two-bedroom apartments and received only columns and 100 laid blocks. Another paid $50 million for an eleven-storey building and received four truckloads of sand. A third paid $22 million for a commercial building with only minor works completed. A fourth paid $45 million for a three-storey complex that reached roughly 15 percent completion. Police told Kaieteur News that Singh has since left the country.

This is the softer form of state involvement: a presidential and ministerial photo opportunity, widely publicized, that lent Modular Builds a credibility never backed by a documented government contract. A review of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board’s published tender-award register shows no contract ever issued to Modular Builds Guyana Inc. Central Housing and Planning Authority’s own news archive carries no procurement notice or follow-up naming the company beyond the May 2024 site-visit coverage. The endorsement, in other words, was real; the paper trail behind it was not.

Omar Malik and DreamVu Homes. This case is categorically different, and more serious. According to the Ministry’s own statement — corroborated across multiple outlets, and prompted by public criticism from Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed; Malik “received a contract through the Housing Ministry for the construction of dozens of Young Professional Homes as part of the Government’s housing push.” Payments to Malik were made, in significant part, through mortgages arranged at local commercial banks, entered into after the Ministry had approved both the contractor and the construction deals.

Mohamed’s public challenge to the Ministry captured the core problem directly: “How could a project facilitated through a government housing initiative become a nightmare for Guyanese?”

Facing that pressure, the Ministry disclosed — for the first time publicly, in a statement issued through CH&PA — that it had known about Malik’s non-performance since at least mid-2025, had issued public notices in national newspapers that August calling on him to report and resolve outstanding matters, had filed a formal criminal report with the Guyana Police Force after he failed to comply, and had since engaged INTERPOL, the FBI, and CARICOM IMPACS in an effort to locate him internationally. Independent reporting confirms this multi-agency engagement is real.

What the Ministry’s own account concedes — and what it omits

Read carefully, the Ministry’s statement is not evidence of an agency that acted proactively. It is evidence of an agency that acted only after non-compliance became undeniable, and disclosed that action only after an opposition leader forced the question into public view. Nothing in the Ministry’s account explains what due diligence, if any, was performed on Malik or DreamVu Homes before he was approved as a contractor on a government housing initiative — the point at which the harm to two dozen families became possible.

That omission matters more than the after-the-fact enforcement effort. INTERPOL and the FBI can help catch a man after he has fled with the money. Nothing the Ministry has disclosed suggests any comparable rigor was applied to stop him from being approved as a government-facilitated contractor in the first place.

The banks in the middle

The families affected by the DreamVu collapse are not simply out of pocket; they are contractually bound to mortgage lenders for houses that do not exist. Multiple outlets report that payments flowed through “local commercial banks and mortgage plans,” but not one names which bank or banks originated these loans. Neither Guyana’s Financial Intelligence Unit nor the Bank of Guyana has issued any public statement referencing this case.

That silence is itself worth scrutiny. Guyana’s Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act designates real estate and construction financing as a higher-risk sector precisely because large, document-heavy transactions with a weakly verifiable end-use are a recognized laundering typology internationally.

A bank originating a mortgage against a specific construction contract carries a customer due diligence obligation that reasonably extends beyond the borrower’s creditworthiness to the legitimacy and deliverability of the underlying transaction it is financing.

If a commercial bank disbursed mortgage funds against a Ministry-approved contract without independently verifying the contractor’s capacity to perform, that represents a second, distinct institutional failure sitting alongside the Ministry’s — one that neither the Ministry’s statement nor any bank has yet addressed publicly.

Until the lending institution or institutions involved are named, and asked directly what due diligence was performed, this remains an open question rather than a settled one. It should not stay that way.

The defense that doesn’t survive contact with the government’s own words

Asked by Kiskadee Watch, in the context of the Malik case, whether the Ministry had tightened expo screening to prevent a recurrence, Minister within the Ministry of Housing Vanessa Benn said the expos “feature all kinds of companies offering their services,” and that the responsibility for background checks rests with the homebuyer — comparing the choice of contractor to buying a car.

That framing does not survive contact with the government’s own public language. Ahead of the 2026 expo, Minister Croal promised the public “a safe and seamless experience for visitors and exhibitors” — the language of active curation, not a disclaimed open marketplace. Nowhere in CH&PA’s published materials, on buildingexpo.gy, or from the expo’s coordinating agency, Impressions GY, could this newsroom find any disclosed exhibitor vetting standard; no published registration requirement, no bonding requirement, no screening criteria available to the public. CH&PA’s Single Window system does require business registration and incorporation documents, but only for construction permit applications tied to specific land parcels — an entirely separate process from securing a booth at the expo, or from being approved as a contractor on a Ministry housing initiative.

Malik’s case removes any ambiguity that might have existed in the Modular Builds case about whether the state was merely an incidental host. Here, the Ministry does not dispute that it approved the contractor directly. Ms. Benn’s comparison to buying a car does not apply to a purchase the car dealership itself arranged, endorsed, and helped finance.

Where this leaves accountability

Guyanese families affected by these two cases did not lose a combined quarter of a billion dollars in an unregulated marketplace. One group encountered a contractor inside a government-branded exposition personally toured and praised by the President. The other was approved, by the Ministry’s own admission, as a direct contractor on a state housing initiative, with payments channeled through the banking system on the strength of that approval.

In neither case has the Ministry disclosed a vetting standard that was applied before the harm occurred — only enforcement measures taken, or disclosed, after it had.

That sequence — endorse first, investigate only under pressure, then instruct citizens to have vetted it themselves — is not accountability. It is liability management. Until CH&PA publishes an actual, enforced screening standard for expo exhibitors and Ministry-approved contractors alike, and until the banks that financed the DreamVu mortgages explain what due diligence they performed, the Building Expo and the Young Professional Homes initiative will remain what these two cases now demonstrate them to be: state-branded platforms carrying the appearance of official vetting, and none of the substance.

The 592 Guardian sought to verify claims independently through UK Companies House records, Guyana’s National Procurement and Tender Administration Board, Central Housing and Planning Authority’s public records, Guyana’s Financial Intelligence Unit and Bank of Guyana public statements, and independent Barbadian press coverage of Modular Builds’ prior operations in that jurisdiction. Where claims could not be independently verified — including the full corporate history of Modular Builds Guyana Inc. through Guyana’s Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority, which maintains no public online search facility, and the identity of the bank or banks that financed the DreamVu Homes mortgages — this is noted in the reporting above rather than presumed.

—The Board

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

    

            

Six Strangers, No Hansard: The Government Has Imported a National Security Question and Told No One

/0 Comments/in , , /by
592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

Six Strangers, No Hansard: The Government Has Imported a National Security Question and Told No One

EDITORIAL BY:  Hem Kumar—September 2026

Six people who are neither Guyanese nor known to any Guyanese institution arrived in this country on Friday, delivered by a foreign power under an arrangement the public was never shown, vetted by a process no one will name, and housed at a location the Government will not disclose. This newsroom can confirm what should trouble every citizen of this Republic far more than the press release did: the agreement that put them here never went to Parliament. There is no Hansard record. There was no debate, no motion, no tabled instrument, no vote. The Cabinet decided, the Foreign Secretary announced it to a wire service on a Saturday, and the country was expected to accept the fait accompli as an act of diplomatic goodwill.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS TOLD US

On September 5, the Government of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana issued a statement — not a Bill, not a treaty text, not a Command Paper, a press statement — announcing the conclusion of a “migration cooperation framework” with the United States. Under it, Guyana will receive “a limited, vetted number of skilled and non-criminal individuals” removed from the United States, processed through the International Organization for Migration’s Assisted Voluntary Return Program. Six such individuals— four nationals from  Cuba and two from  Afghanistan, had already arrived the day before.

Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud told the Associated Press that the arrivals had been vetted by his administration and carried no criminal background. He did not say which arm of the Guyanese state performed that vetting. He did not say what standard was applied, what records were checked, or which foreign or domestic agency supplied the underlying data. Asked in January of this year; while the framework was still under negotiation — to describe how the process would work, Mr. Persaud offered nothing more than: “We are working; there are active discussions.” Eight months and one finalized agreement later, the public still does not know.

The Government has told the country that six foreign nationals of unverified provenance are now inside its borders. It has not told the country who let them in, on what evidence, or where they are sleeping tonight.

THE QUESTIONS THE STATEMENT IS BUILT TO AVOID

Read closely, the September 5 statement is a masterwork of omission by design. It commits the International Organization for Migration to “cover the costs of receiving, housing and supporting” the individuals — and stops there. No facility is named. No region is named. No indication is given as to whether these six are in a private residence, a state-linked property, or a commercial arrangement with a hotel or guesthouse. In a country where the Government cannot say what happened to nurses’ pay cheques or where six generators donated to Linden  would actually go, the public is now asked to trust, on faith, that the housing of foreign nationals delivered under a national-security-adjacent arrangement is being handled competently and safely — without a single verifiable detail.

The vetting question is worse. “Vetted by his administration” is not a process; it is an assertion. Which ministry conducted it — Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Defence Force, or some ad hoc inter-agency arrangement invented for this purpose? Was it conducted independently of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s own case files, or does Guyana’s vetting consist of accepting whatever file Washington hands over? Is there a criminal-record-sharing arrangement with U.S. authorities, and if so, under what legal instrument, subject to what data-protection safeguards?

None of this has been answered because none of this has been asked in any forum where the Government is obliged to answer under oath, under privilege, or under the scrutiny of the record.

NO PARLIAMENT, NO HANSARD, NO ACCOUNTABILITY

This news-media has confirmed directly: the migration cooperation framework was never laid before the National Assembly. There is no Hansard entry. No minister rose to explain it to the elected representatives of the people. No motion was filed, no question was tabled, no committee took evidence. The instrument that brought foreign nationals of undisclosed background onto Guyanese soil exists, as far as the public record is concerned, only as a diplomatic note — a category of international instrument that by its very form is designed to bypass the ratification and disclosure obligations that a treaty would trigger.

This is not a technicality. It is the whole of the matter. An executive that can import foreign nationals, authorise their vetting by an unnamed authority, and arrange their housing at an undisclosed location — all without a single word spoken in the House — has demonstrated that it regards immigration, security, and sovereignty as matters entirely within its own gift, answerable to no one.

That is not how a constitutional democracy is supposed to function. It is how an executive functions when it has learned, correctly, that no institution in this country will make it answer.

A MEETING THE PUBLIC WAS NEVER MEANT TO SEE

Six weeks before the Government’s September 5 statement declared the migration cooperation framework “finalised,” Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, sat down — representing President Irfaan Ali himself — with the Director General of the International Organization for Migration. The only public record of that meeting is a single photograph, posted to the Guyana Chronicle’s Facebook page. No agenda accompanied it. No readout followed. No written article was ever produced.

Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, represented President Dr Irfaan Ali, earlier last week at a meeting with the Director General of the International Organization for Migration

The timing is not incidental. IOM’s own press office dates Director General Amy Pope’s visit to Guyana to July 23, 2026 — precisely the window Dr Singh’s meeting falls within. Every written account of that visit that this newsroom  has been able to locate; issued by IOM itself, syndicated across its regional offices, and yes, published by the Guyana Chronicle under its own byline; describes the trip in a single register: economic growth, labour shortages, Venezuelan migrants “successfully integrating” with IOM’s support, a regional migration governance framework for CARICOM. The Director General is reported to have met with “ five Ministers of Government.” Not one of those five is named. Dr Singh does not appear anywhere in the written record of that visit — only in a Facebook photograph, stripped of context, with no caption explaining what was discussed.

Every written account of that visit spoke of jobs and growth. The only meeting that mattered enough to photograph was never explained at all.

This news- media  does not allege that third-country deportees were the subject of that meeting; the Government has released nothing that would confirm or deny it, and this newsroom deals in what the record shows. What the record shows is this: by the time Dr Singh sat across from the woman whose agency would, six weeks later, be named the sole implementing body for housing and supporting deportees on Guyanese soil, the deportee framework had already been under active negotiation with Washington for the better part of seven months — a fact Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud himself confirmed to the press in January. A meeting between Guyana’s senior– finance  minister, standing in for the President, and the head of the one organisation now central to executing that very framework, deserved more from its own Government than a photograph with no explanation attached. It got exactly that — nothing more.

If the meeting concerned only jobs and labour migration, as every other engagement that week was carefully described as concerning, the Government loses nothing by saying so plainly. Its silence, six weeks on, is the only evidence the public has been given — and it points in one direction only.

GUYANA IS THE REGIONAL OUTLIER — NOT THE NORM

It did not have to be this way, and the region proves it. In Belize, the safe third-country agreement signed with Washington in October 2025 was referred to the Senate for debate and, per the Foreign Affairs Minister’s own commitment, required amendment of the Refugees Act through the House of Representatives before implementation — a process he called, on the record, “a very open, transparent process.” Whatever one thinks of the merits of Belize’s deal, its government submitted the instrument to legislative scrutiny because domestic law required it.

In St. Lucia, the Prime Minister addressed the nation and Parliament directly on the memorandum of understanding, and while critics at the STAR newspaper rightly noted that a ministerial statement to the House is not a substitute for the ratification St. Lucian law requires, the fact remains that a minister stood in the legislature and took public account of the arrangement — a minimum Guyana has not met at all.

Guyana has cleared neither bar. Not Belize’s legislated amendment process. Not St. Lucia’s ministerial statement to the House, however inadequate critics there found it to be. Guyana has produced nothing but a press release, an unnamed vetting process, and an undisclosed address.

THE NATIONAL SECURITY DIMENSION THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT DISCUSS

Guyana is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. It has no domestic asylum legislation. The Government’s own statement insists that individuals relocated here “must retain the right to seek international protection where applicable”; a right the statement invokes while the country possesses no codified legal framework to give that right operational meaning. The state is, in effect, promising a legal protection it has never legislated into existence, administered by a vetting process it will not name, for individuals whose full immigration and criminal history rests entirely on the say-so of the government that just expelled them.

A nation’s first duty is to know who crosses its borders and why.That duty does not evaporate because the persons in question arrived by charter rather than by pirogue, or because the sending government is a powerful ally rather than a neighbour under suspicion.

If anything, the imbalance of power in this arrangement — a small state accepting the overflow of a superpower’s domestic enforcement politics, with the superpower paying the bills and calling the shots on who is proposed for transfer — is precisely the condition under which a legislature’s oversight matters most, not least.

WHAT THIS NEWSROOM  DEMANDS

The 592 Guardian calls on the Government of Guyana to disclose, without further delay:

  • The full text of the migration cooperation framework and the underlying diplomatic note of November 25, 2025, including all annexes governing vetting criteria and operational procedures;
  • The specific agency or agencies responsible for vetting individuals proposed for transfer, and the criteria, data sources, and standard of proof applied;
  • The location, type, and security arrangements of the accommodation housing the six individuals who arrived on September 4, and all future arrivals;
  • Confirmation of whether the framework will be tabled before the National Assembly, and if not, the constitutional basis on which the Executive claims the authority to conclude it without legislative involvement;
  • A full accounting of any financial, in-kind, or diplomatic consideration exchanged between Guyana and the United States in connection with this or any related arrangement.

Guyana’s Parliament has sat four or five times in nearly three hundred days. It has found no time to debate the arrival of foreign nationals under an opaque bilateral framework, no time to demand a named vetting authority, no time to ask where six human beings are sleeping tonight on Guyanese soil. That silence is not neutral. It is a choice, and it is the story.

— The Board

Street exchange rate: $15,000 for $1.6 million

/0 Comments/in , , /by
592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

Street exchange rate: $15,000 for $1.6 million

OPINION BY: GHK LALL— September2026

It’s unbelievable.  Try wrapping head around this: 90 feet of cable worth $1.6 million bartered for $15,000.  It’s the new street exchange rate that allows a man to eat.   I don’t know about powder or smoke, not going near those two.  After all, I have told this to Drs. Ali Mr. Food Security, Dr. Jagdeo  Mr. Food Psychology imagine being full, and not famished until blue in the face: a hungry Guyanese cannot eat concrete, cement, or sand, i.e., roads, bridges, and culverts.

People in this place are hungry.  A hungry man is a desperate man.  Grabbing ninety feet of heavy-duty copper cable weighing 30 pounds could not have been an easy feat.  With so many eyes watching.  With so many lights around.  But a hungry man somehow digs deep, finds that last ounce of superhuman strength.  Plus, the adrenaline gushing in torrents.  I would slap him around for the drugs, but give him a pass for the food.  Because that’s reality in oil rich PPP Guyana. 

A citizen so hungry, that he faces danger with aplomb, lugs 90 feet of cable that weighs dozens of pounds, so that he can get a bite to eat. 

If I were among the leaders in the PPP Govt, I would hang my head in shame, have difficulty facing the poor people of Guyana.  All these billions, and a citizen is forced to steal to sate the pangs of his hunger, so that he could survive to tomorrow.

Mothers shoplifting milk for their children.  Mothers cutting their fingers when slicing whatever they have.  To spread it around, so that all the children get something to take to school for lunch or the lessons that come later.  Meat and fish are usually off the menu, whatever the mothers are slicing.  Too expensive.  Too out of reach.

I am thinking of this national embarrassment, this governmental humiliation.  In a land of abundance-rich stats, richer leadership rhetoric, and the richest cash flow in its history-there are those who are compelled to scrounge to make it through another day.  Is the president listening?  Is he still seeing political motives in every statement, around every corner, behind every shadow?  Whatever the president sees, he should peel away the scales from his eyes, and see that man from Albouystown breaking the law, and pilfering a load of copper wire to reduce the gnawing wrenching that stretches from his esophagus to his duodenum.  Hunger is a hurting thing.  It’s not Lou Rawles, it Guyana’s cruel environment

Look at this tragic episode in the life and times of this dazzling new era in Guyana’s existence.  To lift himself out of hunger’s ferocious grip, a man has to break the law.  To the PPP Govt, I say.  Argue about true rate of poverty.  Hide that statistic.  Boast about cash grant.  Extol PPP Govt wisdom and generosity. Then face this set of unyielding facts and circumstances: how many more Guyanese are engaging in below the radar, petty theft, to make ends meet, to put a pot on the fire? 

How many citizens of this glorious Republic are rummaging in either private or public receptacles to see how lucky they could get, if they would hit the jackpot today?  Meaning, a slice of leftover bread or bake thrown out for the pickup people to haul away?

Hunger is transforming Guyanese into lawbreakers.  How many caught?  How many have the book of justice thrown at them, put away?  An injustice, from my perspective, when leaders live like lords of the manor, flitting from one banquet to another, guzzling the fat of the land.  Fat that first belongs to the Guyanese people, and not their abusers and deceivers.

The question I have is what is Guyana’s justice system to do with this copper cable thief?  Make him an example?  What is the PPP Govt going to do with him?  Probably, make him into a monster, then sell that as a Xmas toy to scare the children.

No Law, No Shame: The AG’s Wolf Is Wearing His Own Clothing

/0 Comments/in , , /by
592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

No Law, No Shame: The AG’s Wolf Is Wearing His Own Clothing

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar. September 2026

Attorney General Anil Nandlall wants Guyanese to believe that lawyers offering to represent MV Barima families are the threat in this story. He called them reckless. He called them foolish. He said they were “soliciting and touting” and committing criminal offences. He warned grieving families that free legal advice is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

We have read the Legal Practitioners Act. We have read the case law. And we have read the record of what the Attorney General himself did the last time Guyana buried children after a disaster involving state responsibility. On both the law and the history, Mr. Nandlall has this precisely backward.

The Law He’s Invoking Doesn’t Say What He Needs It to Say

Touting is a real offence in Guyana, and it has been since 1931. But the Legal Practitioners Act defines a tout narrowly: a person who is paid, by a lawyer or on a lawyer’s behalf, to go out and drum up clients for that lawyer. It is a runner’s offence — the person hanging around the courthouse steering business toward an attorney for a fee. It was written for that specific abuse, and it has produced exactly one prosecution in Guyana’s history. The Court of Appeal threw that conviction out in 1971, on the finding that the “legal business” being touted for wasn’t even genuine. Nothing has been successfully prosecuted under this provision in the fifty-five years since.

Separately, the Act restricts attorneys from soliciting retainers directly and forbids advertising legal services. That is a different provision, aimed at a different problem: professional-conduct standards for practicing lawyers, enforced; when it is enforced at all — by the Guyana Bar Association, not by ministerial broadcast.

Neither provision touches what Mr. Nandlall is actually condemning. A qualified attorney offering to represent a grieving family, for free or for a share of an eventual award, is not a tout. It is not solicitation in the sense the Act criminalizes. It is a lawyer doing what lawyers are licensed to do. Contingency and percentage-fee arrangements are lawful, common, and unremarkable in jurisdictions around the world, including this one. If the Attorney General has a specific statute that makes this arrangement a criminal offence, he should cite the section and subsection on air, the way any lawyer defending a legal claim is expected to. He did not. He asserted criminality and moved on, confident that no one watching “Issues in the News” would ask him to show his work.

We are asking.

He Has Done This Before, and We Have the Court Record

Guyanese should not have to reconstruct this pattern from memory. It is documented, litigated, and still before the courts.

On May 21, 2023, a fire at the Mahdia Secondary School dormitory killed twenty children. On July 3, 2023 — forty-two days later; Attorney General Nandlall flew to Mahdia with a government team to meet the families. According to sworn allegations now part of an active High Court claim, the families were pressured to sign settlement agreements on the spot, without independent legal counsel, for five million dollars per child. Parents have alleged they were told, in substance, that if they didn’t sign, they might get more later through a lawsuit — or they might get nothing at all. Some signed under that pressure. The government appointed attorney who represented the state in that room, Keoma Griffith, now sits in Cabinet as Minister of Labour.

Those families are now three years into a High Court battle to have those signatures set aside. In June 2026, Chief Justice Navindra Singh found the case could not be resolved simply by looking at the agreements themselves — it required a full hearing on whether the people who signed even had the legal capacity to settle claims that, in law, belonged to the children’s estates. The Attorney General’s own applications to strike out the case were refused. As recently as September 2, 2026, Mr. Nandlall  now defending the state directly, represented alongside senior counsel — filed a defense denying any negligence at all.

That is the precedent Mr. Nandlall is inviting Barima families to trust. Not a hypothetical. A live case, with his own name on the pleadings, in which the allegation is that his ministry substituted speed and pressure for the independent legal advice these same families are now being warned away from

Compare the Two Offers on the Table

Set the two things Mr. Nandlall is denouncing side by side.

What the opposition-aligned lawyers are offering: independent counsel, engaged by the family’s own choice, compensated only if the family recovers something — meaning the lawyer’s incentive is aligned with getting the family the most they can, not the least. Nothing about this requires anyone to sign anything under time pressure. Nothing about it forecloses a family’s right to walk away.

What produced the documented Mahdia harm: a government minister meeting grieving parents forty-two days after their children died, without independent counsel present, with an agreement already drafted, urging signature the same day.

Mr. Nandlall’s own government has been careful, in both the Mahdia and the Barima cases, to insist repeatedly that what it offers is “not compensation” and carries “no admission of liability” — language written by lawyers, for lawyers, to protect the state’s legal position.

Families are entitled to have someone in the room whose only job is to protect theirs. That is not a wolf. That is the floor of what due process requires when the party sitting across the table from a grieving family is the same party that may ultimately be found responsible for their loss.

What We’re Actually Asking

We are not endorsing any specific lawyer, arrangement, or fee structure being offered to Barima families — we have no independent basis to vouch for any of them, and families should scrutinize any arrangement, government or private, before signing it. Independent legal advice is not immune from bad actors either.

But that is precisely why the Attorney General’s intervention is the wrong one. If Mr. Nandlall’s concern is genuinely for these families’ welfare, the honest step is to name the specific statute he says is being broken, refer any suspected violation to the Bar Association or the police for investigation in the ordinary way, and let families make their own choice about representation — free of a state broadcast telling them, before they’ve spoken to anyone, that the people offering to stand between them and the government are the ones to fear.

Guyana is a free society. Self-determination is not a courtesy the state extends to grieving families — it is their right. Families choosing their own lawyers, on their own terms, including a percentage-fee arrangement freely entered into, is lawful. It is standard practice in nearly every common-law jurisdiction on earth.

Mr. Nandlall knows this. What he is running from is not a legal question. It is Mahdia, and the fact that this time, families might have someone in the room whose only client is them.

We renew a demand we have made before, on separate grounds: with the Section 23 limitation clock already running under the Transport and Harbors Act, families need clear, independent legal guidance now, not later — and it should come from counsel who answer to them, not to the ministry that may end up a defendant.

— The Board

Guyana Is Not a Prize: The U.S.–China Contest Must Not Eclipse the Public Interest

/0 Comments/in , , /by
592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦ GUYANA

Guyana Is Not a Prize: The U.S.–China Contest Must Not Eclipse the Public Interest

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar September 2026

The increasingly public exchange between U.S. and Chinese representatives over Guyana should concern every Guyanese—not because the country must choose Beijing or Washington, but because both powers are plainly seeking influence in a rapidly changing, oil-rich state.

Guyana is entitled to investment, development assistance, technical support and commercial partnerships from China, the United States and every other country willing to engage on fair terms.

But no foreign partner—however generous its aid, impressive its construction portfolio, or forceful its diplomatic rhetoric—should be allowed to convert that engagement into undue influence over Guyana’s national decisions.

The central duty belongs to the Government of Guyana: protect the national interest through transparency, competitive procurement, competent supervision, enforceable contracts and a foreign-policy posture that does not confuse friendship with dependency.

This Is Now a Public Spat

The latest Chinese Embassy statement did not emerge in a vacuum. It followed a series of documented American interventions concerning Chinese activity in Guyana: public remarks by U.S. Ambassador Nicole Theriot that attracted a response from Chinese Ambassador Yang Yang; Congressman Gabe Evans’s letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio; and Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan Pablo Segura’s X post invoking Guyana’s airport project in criticism of Chinese state-led development.

These are not disconnected events. They represent a clear pattern: Washington is increasingly raising the issue of China’s commercial, infrastructural and strategic presence in Guyana.

The Chinese Embassy has responded by rejecting what it calls false claims, political manipulation and malicious smears against normal China–Guyana economic and trade cooperation. It has cited Chinese firms’ participation in national development, including work associated with the new Demerara River Bridge, six regional hospitals and the China–Guyana Friendship Joe Vieira Park.

There is merit in one central Chinese contention: Guyana is sovereign. It has the unquestionable right to work with China, the United States, India, Brazil, Europe, CARICOM partners and any other country or company prepared to operate lawfully and constructively here.

But sovereignty cannot mean immunity from scrutiny.

The Airport Cannot Be Wished Away

Segura’s reference to the Cheddi Jagan International Airport expansion may have been politically motivated. It may also have been selectively deployed as part of the United States’ wider campaign to question Chinese state-linked companies across the region.

Yet political motive does not automatically make a factual issue disappear.

The airport expansion has long been associated in public discussion with delays, escalating costs, alterations to the original scope and continuing questions over the execution and supervision of the project. Guyanese citizens are entitled to ask whether the state received value for money, whether contractual obligations were adequately enforced, whether all defects and deficiencies were remedied, and whether officials exercised the degree of oversight expected on a project of national importance.

That is not an attack on China. It is an insistence on accountability.

The issue is not that a Chinese company participated in the work. Guyana has every right to retain Chinese contractors, just as it has every right to retain American, Indian, European, Brazilian, Caribbean or local firms. The issue is whether contracts are awarded transparently; whether the terms are publicly known; whether costs, variations and extensions are fully explained; and whether the State pursues remedies when a contractor fails to meet its obligations.

A public project cannot be defended merely by reciting its strategic importance. Airports, roads, bridges and hospitals are not diplomatic trophies. They are national assets paid for by the Guyanese people, and the public has a right to know how those assets were procured, financed, supervised and delivered.

China’s Contribution Must Be Fairly Recognized

Objectivity requires Guyana to acknowledge the contribution Chinese companies and Chinese-supported projects have made to the country’s development.

China has become a significant participant in Guyana’s modernization. Its companies have been involved in infrastructure, construction, trade, equipment supply and other areas of the economy. The country has seen Chinese engagement in major public works, while Chinese businesses have also become a visible feature of commercial life.

It would be dishonest to pretend that every Chinese undertaking is inherently suspect, or that every Chinese company is incapable of performing valuable work. Such reasoning would be prejudicial, simplistic and contrary to Guyana’s own economic interests.

Guyana is a developing country with enormous infrastructure needs. Roads, bridges, drainage, hospitals, housing, ports, energy facilities and communications systems require capital, technology, skilled labor and timely execution. No sensible government should close the door to qualified Chinese companies simply because China is a strategic competitor of the United States.

Nor should Guyana be pressured into abandoning a relationship that has produced visible projects and long-standing cooperation

But appreciation is not a waiver of oversight. Chinese firms, especially where they are involved in major state projects or strategic infrastructure, must meet the same tests imposed on every other foreign participant: quality, cost discipline, contractual compliance, local benefit, environmental responsibility and transparency.

Washington Also Wants a Seat at the Table

The United States is not an uninterested observer in this matter. It is a major development partner of Guyana, with a history of assistance in areas including health, governance, security, disaster response, education and institutional capacity-building.

That assistance has value. It should be fairly acknowledged.

President Trump                  President Ali.

The United States has also become increasingly engaged with Guyana at a time when the country’s oil production, strategic location, energy potential and wider regional importance have elevated its profile. American interest is not irrational. Guyana matters more today than it did a decade ago.

But American concern about Chinese influence should not be mistaken for pure altruism.

Washington is jostling for a larger share of the opportunities opening up in Guyana: infrastructure contracts, engineering work, energy-related logistics, technology, security cooperation, private-sector investment and influence over how a strategically important state develops. That is what powerful countries do. They pursue their interests.

The issue is whether Guyana understands that reality and manages it intelligently.

America’s aid programs do not entitle American companies to Guyanese contracts. Nor do Chinese grants, construction projects or diplomatic support entitle Chinese companies to preferential treatment, political protection or a privileged place in Guyana’s strategic future.

Every firm must earn its place.

Berbice Raises Important Questions

The proposed deep-water harbor in Berbice offers an important example of why Guyanese must examine the practical consequences of great-power competition.

Chinese-linked interests were associated with earlier examination of a possible deep-water port or logistics facility in Berbice. The strategic appeal is obvious. A properly developed deep-water facility could have implications for petroleum logistics, industrial development, exports, shipping, manufacturing, regional connectivity and Guyana’s broader economic transformation.

Subsequently, U.S. engineering firm Bechtel became involved in feasibility and technical work connected to the proposed Berbice deep-water-port initiative.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that development. Bechtel is a major international engineering company. Guyana should be prepared to work with capable American firms, just as it works with capable firms from other countries. The Government should not reject quality expertise merely because it comes from the United States.

But the public is entitled to clarity.

What became of the prior Chinese feasibility work?                              Was it completed? What did it recommend?                                          Was it paid for by the State, a private entity or a foreign partner?          Is it available for public examination?                                                    What technical, financial, environmental or strategic considerations informed the movement toward Bechtel’s involvement?                    What precisely is Bechtel being paid to do?                                            Who finances the current work? What obligations, if any, could follow from it?

These are not hostile questions. They are the minimum questions of responsible public administration.

Guyana must ensure that strategic projects do not become bargaining chips in a contest between foreign powers. A deep-water port should not be awarded, designed, financed or reconfigured because it suits a geopolitical narrative in Washington or Beijing. It must proceed because it is economically sound, environmentally defensible, commercially viable and beneficial to Guyanese people over the long term.

The Risk Is Overconcentration

The problem is not foreign investment. Guyana needs foreign investment.The problem is overconcentration.

No country should become so dependent on one external power’s contractors, finance, equipment, technology, suppliers, spare parts, software, credit or political support that it loses the ability to negotiate firmly or act independently.

That concern applies to China, but it also applies to the United States and every other major external player.

Guyana should be wary of any arrangement in which a single country becomes dominant across multiple strategic sectors at once: roads, bridges, ports, airports, telecommunications, energy infrastructure, security systems, digital networks, medical facilities, extractive industries and large-scale logistics.

Dependence does not always announce itself with a flag. It can arrive through repeated sole-source arrangements, opaque financing, bundled contracts, proprietary technology, maintenance agreements, foreign labour dependence, undisclosed subcontractors and long-term operating arrangements that leave the State unable to act without external approval or expertise.

A country rich in oil revenue but poor in institutional safeguards can still surrender enormous leverage.

That must not happen in Guyana.

Government Must Show Its Work

The Government of Guyana cannot simply invoke sovereignty when challenged by foreign governments. Sovereignty must be demonstrated through systems that protect the public.

The country needs a clear, public and enforceable framework for major infrastructure and strategic investments.

That framework should include:

♦ Publication of all major state contracts, including original values, variations, extensions, completion dates and final costs.

♦ Disclosure of financing terms, guarantees, repayment obligations and any state exposure associated with large projects.

♦ Independent technical audits of major infrastructure works before final acceptance and payment.

♦ Public reporting on defects, remedial works, performance bonds, liquidated damages and penalties imposed or waived.

♦ Transparent procurement records showing how contractors were selected and what competing bids, where applicable, were considered.

♦ Strong local-content rules requiring meaningful employment, training, procurement and skills transfer for Guyanese workers and businesses.

♦  A national assessment of foreign participation in critical infrastructure and strategic sectors.

♦ Security and resilience reviews where foreign companies participate in airports, ports, telecommunications, data systems, energy facilities, hospitals and other sensitive national assets.

♦ Clear beneficial-ownership disclosure so Guyanese know who ultimately controls the companies receiving public contracts.

If Government believes its processes are sound, publication and scrutiny should not be feared.

If contracts are properly awarded, works competently supervised and failures appropriately sanctioned, transparency will strengthen Guyana’s hand against both foreign criticism and domestic doubt.

No One Should Dictate to Guyana

The Chinese Embassy is correct on one fundamental point: Guyana and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean should be free to determine their development partners without outside interference.

But this principle must apply in full.

China must not expect Guyana to silence legitimate scrutiny of Chinese companies. The United States must not expect Guyana to accept a “backyard” mentality, however delicately it may be expressed. Neither power should presume that Guyana’s resources, infrastructure program or diplomatic posture are available for capture.

Guyana must reject the false choice.

It does not have to become anti-China to demand transparency from Chinese contractors. It does not have to become anti-American to reject Washington’s attempts to frame Guyana primarily through the lens of strategic rivalry.

The proper position is pro-Guyana.

A pro-Guyana policy welcomes development partnerships, encourages genuine competition, rewards competence, exposes waste, punishes non-performance, protects strategic assets and insists that all foreign partners deal with this country as an equal.

The Test Ahead

Guyana is entering an era in which foreign governments, multinational companies, contractors, financiers and geopolitical strategists will compete intensely for access and influence.

The danger is not that outside powers have interests. They always will.

The danger is that Guyana’s leaders may be flattered, pressured or divided into accepting arrangements that serve external agendas more reliably than they serve the Guyanese people.

The current public spat should therefore be treated as a warning, not a spectacle.

China should be judged by the quality, cost, transparency and consequences of its engagement. The United States should be judged not only by its warnings about China, but by the seriousness, fairness and competitiveness of what it offers Guyana. And the Government of Guyana must be judged by whether it is willing to put every major partnership under the light of public scrutiny.

Guyana does not need permission from Washington to work with China. It does not need permission from Beijing to work with America. But it does need leaders with the resolve to ensure that, in the contest for Guyana’s future, Guyana itself does not lose.