Archive for category: Opinions

THE 592 GUARDIAN OPINION

Recent developments in Kenya offer a timely and instructive lesson for emerging economies seeking to position themselves within the global digital and artificial intelligence landscape. The suspension of a proposed US$1 billion Microsoft-backed data center—on the grounds that it would place unsustainable pressure on the national electricity grid—underscores a fundamental principle of modern development: ambition must be matched by infrastructure.

Kenya, with an installed electricity capacity of approximately 3,000 megawatts and a comparatively advanced renewable energy portfolio, was compelled to acknowledge that a single hyperscale data facility could consume a substantial share of its national supply. The implications were clear. Without adequate surplus capacity and grid resilience, even the most prestigious investments become untenable.

This reality bears direct relevance to Guyana.

In recent public pronouncements, President Irfaan Ali has advanced the vision of establishing a “Silicon Valley” in Guyana—a concept that, while aspirational, appears disconnected from the country’s present infrastructural conditions. Guyana remains in the process of bringing its 300 MW Gas-to-Energy (GtE) project to operational status, a development that is itself critical to stabilizing domestic supply and reducing energy costs. Yet this project, foundational as it is, does not represent surplus capacity; it represents a long-overdue baseline.

Hyperscale data centers—the backbone of any genuine technology hub—are among the most resource-intensive facilities in existence. Their demands extend well beyond electricity. A single large-scale facility can require between 100 MW and 300 MW of continuous power, alongside extensive cooling systems that depend on significant volumes of water. These are not marginal increases in demand; they are industrial-scale requirements that must be sustained without interruption.

Guyana’s current realities raise serious questions about readiness on both fronts.

Electricity supply, while improving, remains constrained and in transition. The completion and integration of the GtE project are prerequisites for stability, not indicators of excess. Equally pressing is the issue of water. Across Georgetown and other regions, citizens and businesses continue to face persistent challenges with water pressure, reliability, and distribution. The notion of diverting large volumes of treated water to support energy-intensive data infrastructure—while sections of the population experience daily shortages—demands careful scrutiny.

Modern data centers often rely on water-based cooling systems that can consume millions of gallons annually, depending on scale and technology. In jurisdictions where such facilities are successfully deployed, water management systems are robust, redundant, and carefully regulated to prevent competition between industrial and domestic needs. 

Guyana has yet to demonstrate that such systems are in place or even in advanced planning.

The broader issue, therefore, is not whether Guyana should aspire to participate in the global digital economy. It should. The issue is sequencing.

Sustainable technological development is built on a hierarchy of prerequisites: reliable and expandable energy generation, resilient transmission networks, secure and sufficient water supply, regulatory clarity, and a skilled workforce. These elements are not optional; they are foundational. Without them, high-level visions risk becoming detached from operational reality.

Kenya’s recent decision illustrates the importance of confronting these constraints early and transparently. It is a reminder that credibility in development policy is earned not through declarations, but through demonstrated capacity and disciplined execution.

Guyana stands at a pivotal moment in its economic trajectory, buoyed by significant resource revenues and international attention. This moment demands not only vision, but precision. Grand announcements must be anchored in verifiable infrastructure plans, with clear timelines, financing strategies, and independent oversight.

A technology-driven future for Guyana is achievable. However, it will not be realized through rhetoric alone. It will require sustained investment in energy and water systems, careful prioritization, and a commitment to aligning national aspirations with material capabilities.

Until such alignment is achieved, proposals of a “Silicon Valley” remain premature. What is required now is not the language of transformation, but the work that makes transformation possible.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

Opinion | The 592 Guardian

There is a particular kind of political sin that does not announce itself with scandal or corruption. It arrives quietly, dressed in the language of progress and partnership, wearing a smile cultivated for cameras and handshakes. It is the sin of ingratitude — and President Irfaan Ali committed it in full view of the world when he stood aboard the USS Nimitz and beamed.

Let us be precise about what that image represents. The Nimitz is not a diplomatic vessel. It is not a hospital ship or a vessel of goodwill. It is among the most lethal instruments of power ever constructed by human hands — a floating airfield capable of projecting destruction to any corner of the earth. It is the embodiment of the very military-economic architecture that has strangled Cuba for over six decades, enforcing a blockade that has denied ordinary Cuban people medicine, food, and the basic dignities of modern life. To stand aboard it — not quietly, not reluctantly, but with visible pride and enthusiasm — is to make a statement. Whether Ali intended it or not, the statement was made.

And that statement lands like a slap across the face of every Guyanese who was kept alive, educated, or healed by the hands of a Cuban.

 What Cuba Did When No One Else Would

This is not nostalgia. This is not romanticism. This is recorded history.

When Guyana’s hospital wards were understaffed and its patients were dying for want of qualified physicians, it was not Washington that answered the call. It was Havana. Cuban doctors arrived in communities that had never seen a specialist, in regions where the nearest clinic was a day’s journey away. They did not come on short-term contracts with generous compensation packages. They came under the banner of solidarity — a word that has grown unfashionable in an era of transactional diplomacy, but which once meant something real.

When classrooms across this country sat empty for want of teachers, Cuban educators filled them. When Guyanese students had neither the finances nor the connections to access quality higher education, Cuban scholarships opened doors that would otherwise have remained permanently shut. The professionals produced by those opportunities — the doctors, engineers, teachers, and public servants who have contributed to this country’s development — are a living monument to what that partnership meant.

That relationship was built not on oil or military strategy or leverage. It was built on the simple, radical idea that a small nation should help another small nation because it is right to do so. Cuba asked for nothing that Guyana could not give. And for decades, Guyana benefited enormously from that generosity.

Now, the man who leads this country stands on the deck of the vessel most associated with the power that has tormented Cuba, and he poses for photographs.

 The Captured Head of State

There is a phrase in the language of postcolonial political analysis: state capture. It typically refers to the corruption of institutions by private interests. But there is another form of capture — subtler, more insidious — in which a leader becomes so thoroughly absorbed into the worldview, the ambitions, and the validation framework of a more powerful foreign patron that he loses the ability to see himself, his country, and its history through his own eyes.

Irfaan Ali has the look of a man so captured.

Watch how he performs on the international stage. Watch the eagerness to be seen in proximity to American military and economic power. Watch the carefully calibrated language that never discomforts Washington, never challenges the prevailing orthodoxies of the hemisphere’s dominant power. Watch how his government’s rhetoric has quietly drifted from the Non-Aligned tradition that once defined Caribbean and Caricom foreign policy, toward something that increasingly resembles client-state diplomacy dressed up as strategic partnership.

A leader grounded in his own history does not need to perform allegiance to the powerful. A leader who remembers where he came from does not need to be told that gratitude is a political value, not merely a personal virtue. A leader with a genuine foreign policy vision would know that the strength of small nations lies precisely in their ability to maintain relationships across ideological lines — to be friends with everyone without being owned by anyone.

But Ali does not appear to know this. Or if he knows it, he does not appear to care.

 Pragmatism Is Not the Alibi It Pretends to Be

The apologists will invoke pragmatism. They always do. They will say that Guyana must protect its oil wealth, that it faces real security threats, that aligning with the United States is a matter of national survival. They will speak of Venezuela, of regional instability, of the need for a powerful friend.

All of this contains a measure of truth. No serious analyst denies that Guyana’s security environment has changed dramatically with the discovery of oil, or that the country requires credible defence arrangements. The United States is a natural partner in that equation, and engagement with American military forces is not, by itself, a matter for condemnation.

But pragmatism is not a moral blank cheque. It does not erase obligation. It does not permit a government to court a new patron with such theatrical enthusiasm that it implicitly signals contempt for an old friend. It does not excuse the complete absence of any balancing gesture, any acknowledgment, any word of continued respect for the nation that staffed Guyana’s hospitals when Washington was indifferent to their condition.

If Ali’s government had paired its American engagement with even a quiet reaffirmation of Guyana’s relationship with Cuba — a statement, a visit, a diplomatic expression of continued solidarity — the Nimitz photograph would have read differently. It would have read as the act of a confident, balanced statesman navigating a complex world. Instead, it reads as the act of a man who has decided which side his bread is buttered on, and who no longer feels the need to pretend otherwise.

That is not pragmatism. That is opportunism. And in a region with a long memory of what opportunism costs small nations, it is a dangerous and shameful thing.

 Memory as a Political Obligation

There is a broader principle at stake here, one that extends beyond Guyana’s relationship with any single country

A nation that allows its foreign policy to be dictated entirely by present-tense power calculations — that discards old alliances the moment they become inconvenient, that forgets the names of those who stood with it in its hour of need — is a nation that cannot be trusted. It signals to every future partner: we will abandon you too, when the calculus changes. It hollows out the very concept of international solidarity, replacing it with pure transaction.

For Guyana — a small, developing nation navigating a world in which it is perpetually at risk of being overwhelmed by larger powers — this is not merely an ethical failure. It is a strategic one. The nations that earn respect in the international community are not those that grovel most effectively before the powerful. They are those that demonstrate consistency, principle, and the kind of moral seriousness that makes them reliable actors. Guyana once had a claim to that reputation. The Nimitz photograph puts it in question.

 The Image He Should Carry

President Ali would do well to remember a different image than the one now circulating from the Nimitz.

He should remember the image of a Cuban doctor in the Guyanese interior, treating patients who had no other option. He should remember the image of a Cuban teacher in a Guyanese classroom, shaping minds that would go on to build this country’s institutions. He should remember the image of a Guyanese student arriving in Havana on a scholarship, with nothing but promise and the generosity of a small island nation that asked nothing in return but solidarity.

Those images built Guyana. They deserve more than to be quietly retired the moment a more glamorous partnership becomes available.

A head of state who has forgotten this has not merely made a diplomatic misstep. He has revealed something about his character — about what he values, what he remembers, and what he is willing to discard when the lights are bright and the cameras are rolling.

In the end, how a leader treats those who helped him when he was weak tells you everything about who he is when he is strong.

On the deck of the USS Nimitz, Irfaan Ali told us exactly who he is

The 592 Guardian publishes independent commentary on Guyanese civic and political affairs.*

President Irfaan Ali’s latest threat to “shake up” the management of GuySuCo lands with a familiar thud—loud in declaration, hollow in consequence. Guyanese have heard this refrain before. Heads would roll. Targets must be met.

Accountability is coming. Yet, year after year, failure persists, targets are quietly revised, and the same cycle of underperformance continues under the protective umbrella of political convenience.
Let us be clear: GuySuCo is not suffering from a sudden lapse in management discipline. It is drowning under a model that is politically engineered, structurally inefficient, and economically unsustainable. No amount of rhetorical posturing from the Executive can mask that reality.

The numbers tell a story the administration refuses to confront. In 2024, production collapsed to 6,739 metric tonnes against a 16,000-tonne target for the first crop. In 2025, even after targets were reduced, GuySuCo still failed—producing approximately 59,200 metric tonnes against a lowered 60,000 target, itself a retreat from an initial 80,000. This is not underperformance; this is systemic failure dressed up as progress.

And yet, billions more in taxpayers’ dollars continue to be poured into the corporation. The 2026 budget increases allocation yet again, with promises of “financial viability” and “long-term sustainability.” These phrases have now become ritualistic—recited annually, believed by few.
What exactly is being sustained? It is certainly not profitability. It is not efficiency. It is not competitiveness in a global sugar market that rewards innovation and punishes stagnation.
What is being sustained is a political apparatus.

GuySuCo has effectively become the country’s most expensive welfare program—one carefully maintained to preserve rural voting blocs while avoiding the political fallout of genuine reform. The administration speaks of employment numbers and community revival, but refuses to admit that these gains are being artificially propped up by state subsidies with no credible pathway to independence.

Even more troubling is the continued deflection of responsibility. When targets are missed, the blame is redirected—to management, to technical gaps, to external conditions. Never to policy. Never to the flawed governance model. Never to the political interference that industry insiders and critics alike have repeatedly identified as the root cause.

The President now signals “discussions” about ownership and “technical teams” waiting in the wings. But these are not new ideas—they are recycled talking points, deployed each time the pressure mounts. Without structural reform, without insulating the corporation from political control, without a transparent and commercially grounded strategy, these measures amount to little more than administrative reshuffling.

The truth is uncomfortable, but unavoidable: GuySuCo, as currently configured, is under water—and the tide is rising faster than the government is willing to admit.
Guyanese deserve honesty, not theatrics. If the industry is to be saved, it will require more than threats and press conference declarations. It will require political courage—the kind that prioritizes national interest over electoral arithmetic.

Until then, the cycle will continue: missed targets, renewed promises, and another round of warnings that lead nowhere.
The country is watching. And increasingly, it is no longer convinced.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

And Everyone in That Chamber Has Failed It.

Guyana’s Parliament has not sat for more than 100 days. Let that settle. Not a scheduling hiccup. Not an administrative delay. A governance failure — sustained, deliberate, and inexcusable.

The sudden announcement of a June 5 sitting, arriving conveniently on the heels of pointed remarks from representatives of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, should not be met with relief. It should be met with fury. Because what it confirms is this: the machinery of Guyanese democracy does not move on constitutional obligation. It moves on diplomatic pressure. That is a humiliation dressed up as a concession.
Minister Gail Teixeira’s response — that the diplomats should have first “engaged the Government” — is as revealing as it is tone-deaf.

Parliamentary democracy is not a private arrangement to be managed behind closed doors by the politically convenient. It is a public institution. Constitutionally mandated. Non-negotiable. Its prolonged dormancy is not an internal matter to be shielded from outside eyes. It is a public failure to be answered to — by citizens first, and by international partners second.
But here is where this editorial must turn — because the Government cannot be allowed to stand alone in the dock.

The Opposition Has Questions to Answer Too.
One hundred days. Where was the thunder? Where were the emergency press conferences, the legal challenges, the sustained and relentless public pressure that this constitutional crisis demanded? The Opposition — including the lone seat of the Forward Guyana Movement — sounded alarm, yes. But alarm without escalation is just noise.

One must ask, plainly and without apology: if their emoluments had been withheld — if their salaries, allowances, and benefits had been suspended for every day Parliament failed to sit — would they have waited this long? Would the outrage have been so measured, so periodic, so politely contained?

The question answers itself.
Opposition members are not volunteers. They are elected representatives, paid from the public purse, entrusted with the sacred function of holding power accountable. If they treated this constitutional crisis with anything less than maximum urgency, they too have failed the people who sent them there. Silence in the face of institutional collapse is not opposition. It is complicity in slow motion.

The Deeper Crisis: A Parliament That Can Be Paused at Will
The most dangerous truth exposed by these 100 days is not that one party abused its power. It is that the system permitted it.

A Parliament that can be suspended at the political convenience of the executive is not a co-equal branch of government. It is a decorative institution — convened when useful, shuttered when inconvenient. That is not democracy. That is theatre.

And this theatre has played out against a backdrop of unprecedented national expenditure. Guyana is an oil-producing nation now, channelling revenues of a scale this country has never before managed. The Public Accounts Committee — the very body mandated to scrutinise how that money is spent — has been non-functional. Let us be direct: governance without scrutiny at this scale, with this volume of public funds in motion, is not just negligent. It is an invitation to plunder.
Governance without scrutiny is not governance. It is control.

The Reform That Must Now Follow
The resumption of Parliament on June 5 should not be celebrated. It should be the beginning of a reckoning. Because if history is any guide, this is not a correction — it is a recalibration. A temporary concession to external pressure, after which the status quo reasserts itself.
That cannot be allowed to happen again.

Guyana urgently needs — and the Opposition must now table — a Parliamentary Sittings (Fixed Schedule) Bill. Its purpose would be singular and unambiguous: to remove, permanently, the unilateral authority of any person, party, or executive to defer, delay, or dissolve parliamentary sittings at will.

The National Assembly must sit on a constitutionally fixed, publicly published roster. Not subject to ministerial discretion. Not contingent on political appetite.

Not moveable by Cabinet decree. The people’s business must be conducted on the people’s schedule — not the Government’s.
Such a Bill would do more than prevent future abuses. It would signal to every Guyanese citizen, and to every international observer, that this nation is serious about institutional governance.

That it does not require diplomatic nudges to honour its own Constitution.
Let the Opposition bring this Bill. Let them table it the moment Parliament reconvenes. Let every member — Government and Opposition alike — be forced to vote on whether they believe democracy should function inevitably or merely intermittently. Let that vote be on the record, in Hansard, for the people to judge.

The Standard Must Be Inevitability, Not Convenience
Guyanese must now move beyond outrage — because outrage without reform is just catharsis. What this moment demands is structural change, enforceable by law, binding on every administration that follows.

Democracy must not function when it is politically expedient. It must function because it cannot be stopped.

A Parliament that sits only when pressured is a Parliament that has already surrendered its purpose. A Parliament that sits on schedule, by law, regardless of who is in power — that is a Parliament worthy of the name.

Anything less is a betrayal. Of the Constitution. Of the electorate. Of the very idea of self-governance.
The people of Guyana did not elect a Parliament to meet at someone’s pleasure. They elected it to meet — period.

It is time to make that non-negotiable. In law. Without exception. Without delay.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.