Archive for category: News

BY: Hem Kumar 

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣

Another day, another gut-punch to the Guyanese taxpayer—and this time, the stench of elite privilege and systemic failure is impossible to ignore.

Information now in the public domain reveals that the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) may have been fleeced of hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes tied to the importation of three high-end luxury vehicles by a prominent attorney, Devindra Kissoon, a founding member of the London House Chambers.

This is not a story about success or wealth. It is a story about manipulation, apparent deception, and a tax system that continues to bend for the powerful while squeezing the ordinary citizen.
Start with the most recent transaction.

In January 2025, a Lamborghini Urus—one of the most recognisable luxury SUVs in the world—was imported and declared at a value of just GY$22.5 million, roughly US$107,000. Globally, that same vehicle commands between US$240,000 and US$280,000. That is not a minor discrepancy. That is a brazen undervaluation that effectively slashes the government’s rightful tax intake by tens of millions of dollars.

And this was no isolated incident.
In April 2024, a Porsche sports car was declared at a laughable GY$4.7 million—just over US$22,000. That figure would barely secure a used economy vehicle, far less a high-performance German machine with a market value starting around US$135,000.

Then there is the 2021 importation of a Mercedes-Benz GLE 350, declared at GY$9.3 million (US$44,000). While less outrageous on paper, it fits a now unmistakable pattern: luxury vehicles, consistently undervalued, systematically eroding the country’s tax base.

This is not coincidence. This is a method.

And the most disturbing question remains unanswered: how did these declarations pass through the GRA without triggering red flags, audits, or enforcement action?
Because here lies the deeper crisis—not just individual conduct, but institutional weakness.

When a school teacher, a vendor, or a small business owner falls short on taxes, the system moves swiftly and decisively. Penalties are imposed. Licenses are threatened. Compliance is enforced.
But when the elite manipulate invoices and shave millions off import values, the system appears to fall silent.

This is the very definition of a two-tiered society.

Even more troubling is the eerie resemblance to the Azruddin Mohamed scandal, where luxury vehicles were similarly undervalued, and where political proximity blurred the lines between governance and favouritism. In that case, the country was rocked by revelations of a staggering $1.2 billion in unpaid taxes, alongside claims of direct communication with the Head of State regarding reduced tax payments.

Different actors. Same playbook.
Guyana cannot continue down this road.

Every dollar lost through tax evasion is a dollar stolen from public development—schools left unfinished, hospitals under-equipped, roads riddled with neglect. These are not abstract losses. They are real consequences borne by citizens who play by the rules.

The GRA must answer.
Were these valuations independently verified?

Were internal controls bypassed or compromised?

Who approved these declarations?
And most importantly—will there be consequences?

Because without accountability, this is not just a scandal. It is a signal.

A signal that in Guyana, wealth can purchase leniency, influence can silence scrutiny, and the law can be negotiated.

That is a dangerous precedent for any nation—especially one standing on the brink of unprecedented economic transformation.
If the institutions tasked with protecting public revenue cannot—or will not—act decisively, then they risk becoming complicit in the very corruption they are meant to prevent.

The Guyanese people deserve better.
And they are watching.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣-𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 , 𝘼𝙘𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮,𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙄𝙣𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙖 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙗𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨.— ✦—

BY: Hem Kumar 

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣

Royal Chicken and its consortium benefitted from state-backed land and infrastructure meant to lower feed costs and reduce food prices. Instead, the public now faces imported concessions, local exports, and no meaningful relief at the checkout line.
The Royal Chicken arrangement is a textbook example of how public power can be used to manufacture private advantage while ordinary citizens are left to carry the cost.
What was presented to the Guyanese people as a bold agricultural solution was supposed to do several things at once: build local soya and corn production, reduce dependence on imports, lower feed costs, support farmers, and eventually bring down the price of chicken and eggs. To make that happen, taxpayers helped fund the land, the roads, the silos, the wharf, and the wider infrastructure needed to sustain the project.
That was the promise. Relief.
But the reality now emerging is deeply troubling.
Royal Chicken is still reportedly receiving duty-free concessions for feedstock imports, even as the consortium tied to that taxpayer-supported venture is exporting locally grown product that was supposed to help meet domestic needs. In plain terms, the public financed a system designed to reduce costs, but the same system appears to be allowing the same players to import tax-free and export for profit at the same time.
That means the people have been made to pay twice.
First, they paid through taxes that helped build the infrastructure and support the venture. Then they paid again in the market, where food prices remain high and the promised relief has not materialized. The burden never went away; it was simply shifted onto the backs of consumers.
This is not a small administrative mistake. It is a serious abuse of public trust.
A handful of dominant operators appear to benefit from every side of the arrangement: public land, public infrastructure, import concessions, and market control. Meanwhile, small farmers continue to struggle with high production costs, and ordinary households continue to face expensive chicken and eggs. The people who were supposed to benefit from the policy are the very people still paying the price for its failure.
If the goal was self-sufficiency, why are imports still being subsidized? If the goal was lower prices, why is the consumer still suffering? If the goal was to strengthen local production, why is local output being exported while domestic demand remains under pressure?
Those questions go to the heart of the matter. This is not simply about feedstock. It is about whether state policy is being used to serve the public interest or to protect a privileged few.
The greatest insult is that the public was sold a story of relief, development, and national benefit. Instead, it appears to have received a system where taxpayers underwrote the infrastructure, subsidized the imports, and still did not receive affordable food in return.
That is why this issue has cut so deeply. It is not just a policy failure. It is a warning about what happens when public resources are captured by private interests under the banner of development.
The result is brutally simple: the people paid for the relief, and then they were left subsidizing the very arrangement that denied it to them.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣-𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 , 𝘼𝙘𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮,𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙄𝙣𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙖 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙗𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨.— ✦—