Sensitivity, custody, leniency (Commodore Seeram)

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

 Sensitivity, custody, leniency (Commodore Seeram)

OPINION BY: GHK LALL October 2026

No objection!  There’s agreement with 592Guardian.  Mr. Daniel Seeram, Guyana’s Border Patrol Field Marshall has a right to move mountains and drain oceans in an effort to sidestep the pen post-conviction, presentencing.

  I make a point or two.  Not to deny Mr. Seeram his petition for liberty, but in support of those who don’t carry Mr. Seeram’s weight, nor have his access.  In this matter of sensitivity, custody, and leniency relative to Mr. Seeram’s welfare, state of mind, and his pivotal role on behalf of the Guyanese people, the following is submitted.  Not to thwart this fine Guyanese in his quest for freedom, but to layout in human terms.

If freedom for the Border Patrol commander today, who else tomorrow?  If his pleading is given friendly reception, then what about others in a similar court boat?  Or for lesser or greater circumstances.  I go down before I go up.

 The police constable in Georgetown, when under fire, could come up with a novel argument.  He must be on duty, it’s mandatory.  If not, Georgetown could be overrun by criminals bent on wreaking a world of havoc.  Sacking by Visigoths.                                                                        By the same token, the army lance corporal on guard at the Cuyuni River could make a claim identical to Mr. Seeram’s: if he has the book thrown at him, Venezuelan hordes could rampage across the border, and then what?  If for Mr. Seeram, then why not them?

The Community Policing Group man can be a must-have presence.  Locking away the sole breadwinner in a family can bring about starvation of its members.  A single parent imprisoned could contribute to a wayward child, juvenile delinquency.  In short, what Mr. Seeram seeks for himself, due to the primacy of his national role, can be applied to a whole host of situations involving lesser people and, perhaps, more consequentially.  I go higher.  A minister could claim monopoly rights over his portfolio due to unique skills.  A permanent secretary could swear to some extraordinary loyalty.  An agency head, or head of department, could submit testimony favorable to his or her cause. 

Genuine, compelling, claims not to be in jail, because of the exposure to Guyana.  Bottom line: go low, go high, Mr. Seeram has a lot of company re those who could legitimately qualify to be out of jail, using his representations, different circumstances.  Where does this stop?  Who doesn’t make the grade for sympathetic consideration?  Now I go still further.

The Border Patrol, to take a leaf out of the 592Guardian book, has to have bench strength, contingency for emergency, so that there is continuity, without anyone detecting a difference.  I remind Mr. Seeram of this truism: no man is indispensable.  In the abrupt and unfortunate development that someone drops dead on the job, the work still must go on.  I go back almost 100 years to remind fellow Guyanese of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt who did just that and two atomic bombs were still detonated on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.    In war and peace, a good border manager has in place just the right arrangements for such any eventuality.

Moreover, it was reported that, as part of his petition, Mr. Seeram meets with Mr. Ali, Guyana’s president, once weekly as a matter of routine.  Pres Ali could be guilty of a major mental lapse, if all he is comfortable with for management of Guyana’s hot-and cold borders is Mr. Seeram.  Suppose he has a change of heart, a rush of blood to the head, and decides to return to the PNC, or from wherever he came?  Look, I am not that stonehearted that I don’t empathize with Mr. Seeram in his precarious situation (in more ways than one). 

But, as a practical matter, the relief he is seeking would empty the jails, leave prison wardens with time for mischief.

Last, I recommend that Minister Vindya Persaud, she of gender care and compassion, files a court brief.  The hon minister has a choice: the battered wife, or the Seeram-controlled border.  Politics or pain inflicted.  PPP-style justice, or what applies universally, without fear or friends, when a felony occurred.  No bail was the right decision.

A Government That Cannot Finish the First Audit Has No Business Expanding Exxon’s Oil Empire

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY INJOURNALISM♦GUYANA 

A Government That Cannot Finish the First Audit Has No Business Expanding Exxon’s Oil Empire

OPINION BY :Hem Kumar 2026

The Government’s referral of the US $214 million ExxonMobil cost-recovery dispute to the International Chamber of Commerce is not evidence of firm stewardship. It is an overdue procedural step after more than five years of delay, indecision, and public evasion.

More than five years after Guyana was warned that ExxonMobil had placed  US $214million in questionable costs into the country’s petroleum cost bank, the Government of Guyana has finally admitted that it cannot even agree with the company on the appointment of a sole expert.

The matter is now before the International Chamber of Commerce, which will appoint the expert under Article 26 of the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement.

This is not a victory for Guyana. It is a confession of administrative weakness.

A government entrusted with the stewardship of one of the world’s most valuable oil discoveries has been unable to bring the first major Exxon audit to a conclusion. The audit covers expenses from 1999 to 2017,  years before first oil, and involves US $1.6 billion claimed by ExxonMobil. British consultant IHS Markit completed its report in March 2021. It concluded that Guyana had reasonable grounds to dispute US $214.4million, plus applicable overhead adjustments.

Yet, in October 2026, Guyana remains without a final determination.

The first audit is still unresolved. The second audit, involving US $7.2 billion in costs for 2018 to 2020 reportedly identified a further US $65 million in questionable charges. The third and largest audit, covering a staggering US $19.6billion, was reportedly submitted to Government since May 2025, but its contents remain hidden from the public.

That record is indefensible.

The Government Cannot Have It Both Ways

The administration wants Guyanese to believe that it is carefully safeguarding national revenue while, at the same time, it continues to facilitate the relentless expansion of ExxonMobil’s operations offshore.

New projects proceed. New production capacity is approved. New wells are drilled. New fields are developed. More oil is extracted. More revenues flow. And, critically, more costs are accumulated for Guyana to reimburse before the country receives its share of profit oil.

Every new development approval potentially enlarges the cost bank. Every approved project creates new opportunities for cost escalation, questionable allocations, and expenses that may later become disputed. Yet the State has demonstrated that it lacks either the will, the urgency, or the institutional capacity to resolve even the first major cost-recovery audit.

That should alarm every Guyanese.

A government that cannot settle a US $ 214 million dispute from the earliest audit period cannot credibly assure the country that it is effectively policing billions upon billions of dollars in later ExxonMobil expenditures. If the administration cannot close out an audit involving US $1.6 billion, what confidence should the public have in its oversight of the more than US $26 billion covered by the subsequent audits?

This is not a technical inconvenience. It is a direct threat to Guyana’s national patrimony.

The Cost of Delay Is Paid by Guyanese

Under the Production Sharing Agreement, ExxonMobil and its partners can recover eligible petroleum expenses from oil revenues before profits are shared. Therefore, every dollar that is improperly charged, insufficiently examined, or improperly allowed into the cost bank is a dollar that reduces Guyana’s available profit oil.

The US $214 million dispute is not merely an accounting entry. It represents money that could support hospitals, schools, drainage, sea defense, roads, water systems, electricity upgrades, housing, wages, and local economic development.

And that is before considering the wider implications of the unresolved audit process.

The longer the Government delays, the more difficult the accountability exercise becomes. Personnel change. Records become harder to interrogate. Corporate structures evolve. Projects multiply. The volume of claims grows exponentially. An administration that cannot establish a prompt, transparent, and credible system for audit resolution is creating conditions under which the country’s financial exposure will deepen year after year.

The public is being asked to accept assurances while being denied documents.

Why has the full US $7.2 billion audit not been clearly and comprehensively published? Why has the Government withheld the US $19.6 billion audit report received since May 2025 ? What specific costs were disputed? What was ExxonMobil’s response? Which sums were accepted, reduced, rejected, or carried forward? What steps has the Government taken to protect Guyana from further questionable cost recovery?

These are not unreasonable questions. They are the minimum questions that any responsible government must answer.

EPA Has a Responsibility Too

The Environmental Protection Agency cannot behave as though environmental permits exist in a vacuum, detached from the wider public-interest obligations surrounding petroleum development.

The EPA has authority through its permitting and approval functions. It assesses applications for new developments, production activities, environmental authorizations, modifications, and compliance requirements. It can impose conditions, demand information, require compliance with applicable laws and permits, and ensure that decisions serve the public interest.

Before additional projects, fields, and production expansions are approved, the country must be satisfied that the State has an effective system to monitor the financial consequences of those approvals.

It is not responsible governance to permit a continuous escalation of extraction while the Government remains incapable of resolving the foundational dispute over whether hundreds of millions of United States dollars were properly charged to Guyana in the first place.

No responsible regulator should ignore the fact that each new approval can increase the scale of cost recovery and the complexity of oversight. The EPA, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Guyana Revenue Authority, the Ministry of Finance, and every other relevant agency must understand that weak financial oversight undermines the national interest just as surely as weak environmental oversight does.

Guyana cannot afford a regulatory system that approves first and audits later—especially when “later” means five years, six years, or perhaps never. We need to let Exxon know that it is our priority to clear up  the fiscal backlog before any further approvals.

This Is Administrative Failure

Article 26 of the petroleum agreement is clear. If the parties cannot agree on a sole expert within 30 days, the ICC is to appoint one. The expert should then seek to provide an opinion within 30 days of appointment, and no later than 60 days.

Yet the Government allowed the selection process itself to drag on for more than a year, long after the contractual timeline had expired. The public deserves an explanation for this delay.

Who proposed the experts? Which candidates were rejected? Why were they rejected? Did the Government invoke the ICC process immediately after the deadline elapsed? If not, why not? What instructions were given to the Government’s legal and technical teams? How much money has Guyana spent managing this dispute? What is the Government’s final position on each component of the US $214.4 million in questioned costs?

These questions go to competence, transparency, and accountability.

The administration cannot continue to shelter behind vague statements that it is “working with Exxon” or that the matter is “before the ICC.” Guyanese have heard these formulations for years while the oil sector expands at breathtaking speed.

A strong government would have pursued a swift resolution, published the audit reports, explained the disputed sums, reported regularly to the public, strengthened its audit and legal capacity, and ensured that new project approvals were accompanied by enforceable safeguards.

Instead, the country has been given secrecy, delay, procedural drift, and reassurance without documentation.

Guyana Must Demand a Moratorium on Further Approvals

The Government must immediately publish the complete audit reports for the 2018–2020 and  subsequent audit periods, including the findings, disputed costs, ExxonMobil’s responses, and the Government’s determinations.

It must also disclose the full record of the US $214 million dispute and commit to public updates once the ICC appoints the sole expert.

Most importantly, the Government and EPA should pause approvals for new ExxonMobil field developments and major production expansions until Guyana can demonstrate that it has a functioning, transparent, timely, and independent audit-resolution mechanism.

This is not a call to shut down the petroleum sector. It is a demand that Guyana stop governing its most valuable resource through blind trust, delayed audits, and secret reports.The country cannot continue granting access to new oil wealth while remaining unable to determine whether ExxonMobil was entitled to recover money from Guyana’s first bill.

Every new project approved before this accountability crisis is corrected sends the same troubling message: ExxonMobil’s expansion is urgent, but Guyana’s oversight is optional.

That is not partnership. It is surrender.

The PPP administration must choose whether it will act as a guardian of Guyana’s petroleum wealth or as a passive bystander while the country’s inheritance is placed beyond meaningful scrutiny.

 

An Inquiry That Cannot Reach Its Own Evidence

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

 An Inquiry That Cannot Reach Its Own Evidence

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

On Wednesday the Chairman of the MV Barima Commission told the country that the Commission is “not an arm of the Government.” Within hours, answering a question on raising the ferry, he said orally that this lies outside the Commission’s powers. Those statements are strong on the language of independence and thin on mechanisms. Most of the red flags are in what it leaves out.

Both cannot comfortably describe a body whose job is to establish what sank a vessel. Independence is not something an inquiry declares. It is something it holds, and it is measured by three things: control of its evidence, its record, and its report. On its first day the Commission held none of them.

Independence is not something an inquiry declares. It is something it holds.

The Evidence

The wreck is the central exhibit. The Commission says it cannot award the salvage contract or vet the contractor. Yet Dr Jasionowski told families he has met the salvage team personally, expects daily reports from it, and named BK International before any government announcement did. The NPTAB has since confirmed the award. Royston Frank, who lost his son Rawle, a crew member, put the families’ position plainly: they “don’t know nothing that is going on.”

A body that disclaims authority over the salvage while sitting inside its information loop has the worst of both positions. It cannot protect the evidence, and it will be tied to whatever happens to it. We have argued that the Commission should hold binding approval over any contractor. It now says it does not. So the questions fall to the Government and the NPTAB. Who bid, at what price, on what evaluation, and what did the board see? We have documented a pre-tender invitation to a different contractor and a sealed bidder list. The public has not been told how that process ended in this award.

The Commission is right that it cannot freeze its other work while the vessel lies on the seabed. It also deserves credit on scope. The Chairman told families that institutions responsible for ferry services will be examined for systemic failure, and fleet-wide document requests have gone out. But those requests were sent only last week, ten weeks after the swearing-in, while the stated goal of “about six months” runs against an exhibit still underwater.

The Record

The opening statement says the Rules of Procedure have been adopted and published. Three pages later it concedes that the website is not ready and that the Terms of Reference and Rules can be had by emailing the Secretary, at a Gmail address on the letterhead. Both cannot be true. A public inquiry that asks the public to email for its own mandate has no public record yet. Hearings open on Wednesday, October 14. The record must exist before the first witness does.

The Report

The statement says the report will be delivered “to him,” the President. It makes no promise that the report, or any interim recommendation, will ever be published or tabled. The President appointed all five commissioners alone, and the Secretary who runs witness intake and standing applications has links we have already documented.

The Chairman asks the public to trust the process. A process whose findings travel to one reader, with no disclosure commitment, gives the public little to trust.

What the Statement Leaves Out

It names two departments, not the ministry above them or the ministers who answered for them. It says nothing of the three crew members charged two days before the Commission was sworn in, or of how that prosecution will interact with the evidence the Commission needs. It offers no declarations of interest. And ten weeks on, no credible source has confirmed how many people were aboard, so the toll is reported as dozens confirmed dead, more than thirty missing, and by some accounts more than a hundred in all. The Commission’s own scope lists passenger numbers and manifests. It should say when it will publish a verified count.

None of this proves the outcome is fixed. The Chairman says he has no predetermined view, and the test of that is conduct. So we set the test now.

Our Demands

  • Publish the Terms of Reference, Rules of Procedure, Presidential Order and all instrument dates before Wednesday’s hearing.
  • Commit in writing to publish the final report, and any interim recommendations, in full on receipt.
  • Publish declarations of interest from all five commissioners and the Secretary. Commissioner Alfonso should state on the record whether she or her firm has any relationship with BK International or any other bidder, given her stated salvage experience.
  • Have the NPTAB and MARAD publish the bidders, prices, evaluation and award date for the salvage.
  • Place the recovery under a published chain-of-custody protocol, with independent observers and a family representative present.
  • Publish a verified account of everyone aboard: the dead, the rescued and the missing.

Until they do publish the above requested , we will deem the Commission’s inquiry not as formal  proceedings but as mere performance.

— The Board

Routledge and duty not owed: firing Guyana’s soul -Pt III

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Routledge and duty not owed: firing Guyana’s soul -Pt III

 OPINION BY: GHK LALL October 2026

I look closer at Exxon’s Mr. Alistair Routledge, what he does for his company.  I look more sharply at what Guyana’s leaders do for this country.  Regrettably, it’s what they don’t do.  From which they keep the safest, farthest distance.,

Mr. Routledge gives 150 percent daily for Exxon.  Fault him, flay him, his efforts resonate for Exxon.  What he committed to, he delivers.  He came armed to Guyana.  A hard-as-nails, unbending Exxon badman.  He hasn’t disappointed.  Guyanese don’t have to like him, but must regard his body of work for Exxon.  His manifesto fulfilled.  Accomplished his mission.  I salute a corporate soldier.  He knows when to lie low; when to go public.  He has used silence; has used public relations to Exxon’s advantage.  This man has represented Exxon very well.  From my perspective: too well.  Shared publicly is what I think of Mr. Routledge’s unflagging efforts to represent and protect Exxon’s interests in Guyana.  Summary: Mr. Routledge is neither friend nor ally of Guyanese.  But someone to recognize.  I do.

It’s time for Guyanese leaders.  There is no comparison; they don’t belong in the same conversation. No standing.  They command no respect.  They display neither rigor nor vigor, possess neither adaptability nor attributes to represent Guyanese with boldness and zealousness.  However, not one of those is a fatal obstacle to lifting the soul of this nation.  The PPP Govt must be honest, the first mandatory requirement.  The Ali-Jagdeo axis must be genuinely committed to Guyana’s flag, cause.  They must learn from Alistair Routledge.  How he represents corporate interests, they copy from his book and represent this country’s interests.  How Mr. Routledge claws his way towards what benefits Exxon’s constituents, so also must Messrs. Ali and Jagdeo claw for what maximizes Guyanese benefits.  Begone the emasculation of sanctity.  Sanctity has its place.  There are ways to manage it.

Mr. Routledge has deployed the provisions in Exxon’s contract to the company’s advantage, so the Ali-Jagdeo tag team (heavyweight and featherweight) must use policies and procedures built into Guyana’s watchdog agencies for an edge.  Interpret expansively.  Exxon has its contract.  Guyana has its EPA and GRA.  Instead of muzzling them, handicapping them, find ways to utilize them.  Dr. Jagdeo is wily enough.  Rethink how Mr. Nandlall is deployed. 

Imagine how these few first steps could lift the soul of a sluggish nation.  The PPP Govt cannot continue to giveaway Guyana’s wealth on a platter to Exxon, while Guyanese masses are without a plate.

When Mr. Routledge resorts to delay and protective strategies (audits, reserves), the Ali-Jagdeo crew demonstrates how much they learned by using the same cards.  When Mr. Rouledge, with Woods and board backing, can be bold and brazen, Ali and Jagdeo must manifest that they aren’t unschooled in those attributes, either.  When he projects subterfuges, they prove they are no slouches in that department, too.  Drs. Ali and Jagdeo cannot go toe-to-toe with Woods and Routledge.  Guyana loses.  But when the Ali-Jagdeo partnership manifests the sagacity and perspicacity (one’s a painting, the other a disaster) of genuine patriots, then Alistair Routledge is reduced to a toothpick.  Especially with Guyana having the homefield advantage. 

Again, envision the lifting and inspiration to the soul of this nation.  From docile Guyanese to determined Guyanese.  From passive and prostate natives, to potent patriots.

The spirit is there.  Suppressed by the PPP using sanctity of contract as its national castration instrument.  No exploratory inspections made.  No courage, only guile.  How to use Guyana’s institutional strengths to influence Exxon differently.  How to rally restless Guyanese.  Have them stand in Ogle and Duke Street, and get Guyana’s message across.  For a cause.  For patrimony.  For the soul of Guyana found, inspired, lifted to its natural height.  To date, the PPP Govt has operated like a punk and made Guyanese into pushovers, the country a laughingstock. 

When Mr. Alistair Routledge drew his line in the sand (we have no duty…), it is time for Excellencies Ali, Jagdeo, Nandlall to stand up and show Guyanese, show the world, the kind of men they can be.  Their duty now is to inspire the soul of this nation in response to Mr. Routledge’s frank, unavoidable, unacceptable truth(s).

A Candidacy Undone by Its Own Words

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

 A Candidacy Undone by Its Own Words

OPINION BY :Hem Kumar October 2026

Guyana’s UN Envoy’s  latest intervention is not the mark of a principled diplomat rising above politics. It is the reflex of a candidate whose judgment, restraint and understanding of the office she seeks are now seriously in doubt.

Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett’s declaration that, if her conduct and pronouncements are used against her candidacy for United Nations Secretary-General, “we will see where the UN is heading,” is as revealing as it is alarming.

It is not the language of a diplomat seeking to build consensus across a fractured world. It is not the language of a prospective Secretary-General who must command the confidence of competing powers, divided regions and states with deeply conflicting national interests. It is the language of confrontation—an unmistakable drawing of a line in the sand by someone who appears to have forgotten that diplomacy requires the capacity to work the entire field.

The Secretary-General cannot be a partisan standard-bearer for one bloc, one ideology or one set of preferred conflicts. The office demands discipline, balance, discretion and a demonstrable commitment to applying international law consistently—not selectively, loudly and politically when the issue is Gaza, but quietly or not at all when grave human-rights concerns arise closer to home.

Rodrigues-Birkett says every word she uttered was spoken on behalf of Guyana and its Government. That admission makes the problem more—not less—serious. A candidate for the UN’s highest office must demonstrate independence of mind and the moral authority to confront abuses wherever they occur. She cannot credibly present herself as a global guardian of peace and international law while appearing unwilling to speak with comparable urgency about the suffering of Indigenous Guyanese in the recent tragedy in Region.1

Where was this same uncompromising conviction when an inordinate number of Indigenous citizens—people from her own wider Indigenous community—were caught up in the MV Barima tragedy? Where was the public insistence on accountability? Where was the international-law rhetoric? Where was the demand for transparent investigation, justice for victims, and consequences for those responsible?

The troubling contrast cannot be ignored. Gaza rightly deserves global concern, humanitarian protection and adherence to international law. But Indigenous lives in Guyana are not lesser lives. Their pain cannot be treated as politically inconvenient, locally manageable or unworthy of the same moral vocabulary that is deployed so forcefully on international platforms.

If genocide is the standard by which the Ambassador measures state conduct abroad, then alleged state-sponsored atrocities, abuses and failures of protection at home must also attract scrutiny of equal seriousness.

Human rights cannot be a foreign-policy accessory—worn prominently at the United Nations and discarded when it becomes uncomfortable for the Government one represents.

That is the fundamental indictment of this candidacy: inconsistency.

Rodrigues-Birkett seeks to lead an institution founded on universality, yet her public record increasingly suggests selective outrage. She seeks to be custodian of the UN Charter, yet her posture reflects political allegiance more than the detached, steady-handed leadership required to preserve dialogue among states that do not agree with her.

A Secretary-General must be able to speak to Israel without becoming a political antagonist; to speak to Palestine without diminishing Palestinian suffering; to engage Washington, Beijing, Moscow, African states, Caribbean nations and the Global South without converting the office into an ideological pulpit.

The task is not to win applause from one side of an international dispute. It is to keep every side at the table long enough to avert war, reduce suffering and create space for peace.

Rodrigues-Birkett’s response to concerns over her candidacy does not reassure. It suggests that those who question her suitability are somehow exposing a UN that has lost its way. But the question is not whether international law should be defended. Of course it should. The question is whether she possesses the impartiality, temperament and diplomatic breadth to lead the United Nations at its most perilous moment.

Her own words supply the answer.

She has demonstrated a penchant for partisanship where the office demands neutrality. She has adopted a confrontational public posture where the job requires persuasion. And she has failed to establish that her concern for human rights is equally urgent when the victims are Indigenous Guyanese and the scrutiny turns toward the administration whose policies she has represented.

The image now emerging is not of an independent global leader prepared to hold all power to account. It is of a political representative whose moral certainty rises in proportion to the distance between the crisis and the Government to which she owes her position.

That is not statesmanship. It is not principled multilateralism. And it is certainly not the standard required of a United Nations Secretary-General.

The 592 Guardian therefore states unequivocally:                

Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett is unfit for the top job at the United Nations. The world body needs a unifier, an honest broker and a defender of human dignity without geographic, racial, political or partisan qualification. Her record and her latest remarks show that she is not that leader.

She simply lacks the diplomatic statecraft, skill set, and temperament required to navigate the UN Secretariat effectively across its many distinct roles.

 

When Sentences Become Negotiable – for Govt Aligned Affiliates

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

 When Sentences Become Negotiable – for Govt Aligned Affiliates

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

Guyana cannot credibly proclaim the rule of law while court-ordered custody appears to become optional for persons believed to enjoy political protection. The unresolved detention of Kevon Lorrimer, coming amid public questions over Daniel Seeram’s custody, warrants immediate, documented answers—not denials, deflection, or silence.

But this is precisely why the matter is so consequential. When the state declines to provide a clear account of the custody of convicted and remanded affiliates , it creates the conditions in which suspicion flourishes and public faith in judicial independence deteriorates.  

The remedy is not rhetoric; it is transparent, verifiable disclosure and strict compliance with the court’s order.

The question is no longer only whether Daniel Seeram should receive bail. The High Court has ruled that his judicial-review application did not meet the required legal threshold, leaving the Magistrate’s remand order intact. In any jurisdiction governed by law rather than access, that should settle the immediate question of custody: a convicted man who has been remanded remains in lawful custody unless and until a competent court orders otherwise.

Yet the public is now confronted by an extraordinary uncertainty. If no evidence can be produced that Seeram has been admitted to the designated prison facility—or transferred to another lawful custodial location under a valid authority—the state must explain precisely where he is, under whose custody, and on what legal basis.

A remand order cannot become a suggestion when it concerns a man with a state appointment, proximity to power, or political value.

We must be careful with our language: unexplained custody arrangements do not, by themselves, prove executive interference. But silence, opacity and special administrative treatment are the fertile ground in which democratic decay takes root. Where court orders are visibly enforced against ordinary citizens but become uncertain when politically connected officials are involved, the law begins to acquire two faces—one stern for the powerless, another accommodating for the protected.

And where does this leave the aggrieved party? She is entitled not only to a guilty verdict, but to equal and meaningful execution of the orders that follow it. A victim impact statement cannot restore public confidence if the state cannot—or will not—show that the convicted man is being held in accordance with the court’s direction.

In a country that says it is confronting domestic violence and femicide, justice cannot end at conviction and dissolve in the corridors of custody.

This is not yet proof of autocracy. It is, however, a warning flare. The next phase of authoritarianism is not always announced by soldiers or suspended elections. Sometimes it begins when lawful orders become negotiable for the connected, when institutions refuse to account for their actions, and when women are left to wonder whether the law will protect them equally once power decides that accountability is inconvenient.

The gravest issue is not that either man has legal rights. Every accused and convicted person does. The issue is whether, after a court has spoken, there is a separate administrative channel through which politically connected individuals are cushioned from the consequences imposed on everyone else.

A nine-month prison sentence is not a recommendation. A remand order is not a polite request. Once the relevant warrant is issued and a convicted person is in police custody, the machinery of justice is expected to move: custody must be regularised, records maintained, and the person delivered to the lawful correctional authority to begin the sentence.

That is the ordinary expectation in any jurisdiction that claims fidelity to law.

The unresolved detention of Kevon Lorrimer, coming amid public questions over Daniel Seeram’s custody, warrants immediate, documented answers—not denials, deflection, or silence.

Yet the public has been told that Lorrimer—described as a governing-party activist in Linden—remained in police custody after being apprehended, despite having been sentenced in his absence more than two weeks earlier. Senior police officials reportedly could not explain the delay. If accurate, that is not a minor administrative oversight.

It raises the disturbing possibility that the execution of a criminal sentence can be delayed by influence rather than governed by law.

The matter cannot be examined in isolation. It comes against the background of serious public concern regarding the custodial status of Daniel Seeram, a senior state-security official convicted of assault causing actual bodily harm to his former wife and remanded pending sentencing.

In both matters, the public is not entitled to gossip or political theatre. It is entitled to records, timelines, lawful explanations and institutional accountability.

The authorities should answer, plainly:

♦ When was Lorrimer arrested, and under what warrant?

♦ When was the Prison Service notified that he was in custody?

♦ Was a commitment warrant issued, and on what date?

♦ Why was he kept at a police facility rather than transferred promptly to the designated prison authority?

♦ Who made, authorized, or approved the decision to delay his transfer?

♦ Was any minister, political operative, senior police officer, or other state official involved in discussions concerning his custody?

♦ Has Lorrimer now been transferred to prison, and if so, precisely when?

♦ What written record exists to show that the sentence has been lawfully executed?

♦ In Seeram’s case, where is he being held, under what authority, and what records establish compliance with the court’s remand order?

These are not opposition questions. They are rule-of-law questions.

A government cannot treat criminal sentences as stern commands for the poor and inconveniences for its associates. When an ordinary Guyanese misses a court date, police action can be swift and unforgiving. Yet where there is political proximity, the country is asked to tolerate unexplained administrative delay, opaque custody arrangements and a silence that invites the very suspicion officials should be working to dispel.

That is how public faith is corroded. Not only by a court ruling overturned in dramatic fashion, but by smaller acts of institutional accommodation: the unexplained day in a police station, the delayed prison transfer, the unreturned call, the missing record, the official who says nothing because someone powerful may be displeased by the truth.

The victims and complainants in criminal matters are watching. So are women reporting domestic abuse. So are ordinary citizens who have learned, often painfully, that the law can be swift when it chooses. They deserve assurance that conviction has meaning and that an order of remand or imprisonment is not weakened by party colors, private access or political usefulness.

This pattern, if substantiated, does more than indict a government for favoritism. It places the professionalism of police officers, prison officers, court clerks and every public servant involved in the criminal-justice chain under a cruel and corrosive strain. It asks them to honour the law in public while accommodating exceptions in private. That is not administration. It is institutional degradation.

This  is a warning  that has far reaching implications beyond the borders of Guyana

International investors, development partners, diplomatic missions and businesses entering Guyana’s expanding economy should pay close attention—not because Guyana is beyond repair, but because legal predictability is the foundation of every serious investment environment.

Capital can tolerate many risks: market fluctuation, infrastructure gaps, commodity cycles and logistical challenges. What it cannot price easily is a system in which the practical operation of justice appears dependent on who has proximity to political power. Investors need confidence that contracts will be enforced, regulators will act consistently, disputes will be decided impartially, and court orders will not be selectively honored.

The message Guyana must send is not that powerful people can make inconvenience disappear. It must be that public authority is bound by law, that every court order is executed transparently, and that the police and Prison Service answer first to the Constitution—not to a party, a minister, or a politically useful friend.

If the Government believes the concerns are unfounded, it has the simplest remedy available: publish the lawful records, explain the timelines, identify the responsible authorities and demonstrate compliance with the courts.

Until then, every unexplained delay becomes a warning. Every missing answer becomes evidence of a system under strain. And every appearance of special treatment tells Guyanese—and the world—that justice may be blind only when it is looking at the powerless.

Guyana’s Development Bank: A public lender or the PPP’s electoral wallet?

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

 Guyana’s Development Bank: A public lender or the PPP’s electoral wallet?

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026 

Brazil’s first-round vote is a warning: economic progress is not enough

Brazil’s presidential election has delivered a chastening result for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He remains very much in contention ahead of the 25 October runoff. But Flávio Bolsonaro’s first-place finish, with roughly 47% to Lula’s 45%, has exposed the fragility of the incumbent’s political coalition and the enduring force of Bolsonarismo.

The immediate temptation is to treat this as a polling failure. That would be too easy. Polls broadly anticipated a close contest and a second round, even if they expected Lula to lead. The more important story is the apparent late movement of voters from smaller rightwing candidacies towards Bolsonaro—a strategic decision to concentrate opposition to Lula before the runoff rather than after it.

That shift changes the political atmosphere. Bolsonaro’s lead is narrow, but it gives him momentum, validates his campaign’s claim to represent an ascendant conservative bloc and raises the pressure on Lula to demonstrate that he can still expand beyond his existing base. The Liberal Party’s wider strength in congressional contests reinforces that message: this was not merely a personal result, but evidence of a resilient and organized right.

It would be wrong, however, to accept Bolsonaro’s success as a clean endorsement of renewal or probity. His campaign has prospered amid the Banco Master affair, a scandal that has implicated figures across Brazilian public life and intensified public distrust of institutions. Bolsonaro himself has faced allegations concerning money sought from the bank’s former owner for a film project about his father; he denies wrongdoing.

Brazil’s presidential election offers Guyana a warning that should not be ignored. The Banco Master scandal has shown how quickly a financial institution becomes politically toxic when private influence, public power and electoral ambition collide.

In Brazil, allegations involving bankers, politicians and senior judicial figures have deepened the public conviction that there is one system for ordinary citizens and another for the well connected.

Guyana is now building an institution that could either support genuine national development or entrench precisely that culture of political favour.

The Guyana Development Bank has been launched with the promise of zero-interest, zero-collateral loans—up to $3 million—for small businesses and citizens who cannot obtain conventional financing. Properly administered, that mission is defensible. Farmers, vendors, young entrepreneurs, manufacturers and struggling families need access to affordable capital. Commercial banks have too often treated small borrowers as risks rather than contributors to national growth. 

But public lending is never neutral where political power controls the gate.

The essential question is not whether Guyana needs a development bank. It does. The question is whether the PPP-C has created a national financial institution or a taxpayer-funded mechanism for political patronage in the run-up to the next election.

The answer lies in the governance structure.

The Finance Minister holds the power to appoint the bank’s directors, including the chairperson and deputy chairperson. There is no meaningful bipartisan process, no parliamentary confirmation, no independent appointments commission and no evident public test of whether candidates are politically neutral, professionally qualified or free from conflicts of interest.

That minister is not a disinterested administrator standing outside electoral politics. He is one of the most important figures in the PPP-C’s governing machinery and is widely viewed as a possible central figure in its next electoral configuration. He is therefore positioned as both driver and conductor of an institution that can distribute valuable state-backed benefits to thousands of voters

This is where the matter becomes grave.

The inaugural board does not project independence from the executive or the ruling party. Its composition includes persons publicly associated with the governing establishment, including a sitting PPP-C parliamentarian, a senior Finance Ministry official and a member of the President’s Youth Advisory Council.

No allegation of criminality is required to recognize the problem. The problem is structural: the bank begins its existence under the shadow of political alignment rather than public independence.

The government may insist that every appointee is qualified. That is beside the point. Public confidence depends not merely on competence, but on demonstrable independence. A development bank handling billions in public resources cannot resemble an extension of the ruling party, particularly when it offers loans that may be transformative to recipients and politically invaluable to those who can claim credit for them.

Zero-interest and zero-collateral loans are not ordinary benefits. They are extraordinary state concessions. They can rescue a business, create dependence, reward loyalty and generate a powerful sense of obligation. In the wrong hands, they are not development finance. They are patronage with an application form.

This is the point Guyana must absorb from Brazil. Corruption is not confined to cash-filled envelopes, kickbacks or a plainly illegal contract. It also exists in the quiet conversion of state resources into political advantage: preferential access, opaque discretion, insider connections, selective enforcement and public institutions whose leaders answer more readily to party authority than to the public.

A bank built this way will not have to issue a single visibly improper loan before public suspicion takes root. Every approval to a party activist, contractor, donor, politically connected businessperson or community leader will invite the same question: was this creditworthiness—or political usefulness?

The PPP-C should not be offended by those questions. It should welcome them and answer them through law, disclosure and independent oversight. If the bank is genuinely designed for national development, then the government should immediately require publication of all eligibility criteria, credit-scoring rules, loan approvals, beneficiaries, interest terms, repayment schedules, defaults, restructurings and write-offs.

It should bar ministers, parliamentarians, party executives, senior public servants and their close relatives or controlled companies from receiving loans. It should require directors and senior staff to disclose assets, business interests and political affiliations. It should establish an independent credit committee, submit the bank to Auditor General scrutiny, and require quarterly reports and substantive examination by the National Assembly.

Above all, no Finance Minister should possess unchecked authority to populate the board of an institution empowered to dispense public money on terms unavailable in the ordinary market

Brazil’s lesson is clear: when public institutions are perceived as controlled by political insiders, scandal does not remain confined to the individuals named in an investigation.

It contaminates the legitimacy of the entire democratic order.

Guyana’s oil wealth has made the stakes even higher. The country has resources sufficient to uplift citizens and diversify the economy—or sufficient to construct a more sophisticated patronage state. The Development Bank will help reveal which path the country has chosen. The government must decide whether this bank belongs to Guyana, or to the PPP-C.

What Mr. Routledge didn’t say, I say -Pt II

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

What Mr. Routledge didn’t say, I say -Pt II

OPINION BY: GHK LALL October 2026

Exxon’s Guyana Head, Mr. Alistair Routledge, created a firestorm in Guyana with an unyielding expression of his company’s position.  Though he said much, he was careful to steer clear of certain circumstances, disciplined to silence.  What Mr. Routledge didn’t say, I say.

Exxon is here to make a profit.  All else is charity.  A bat, a hat, a sponsorship, a relationship, those are all charity.  But with a difference.  Exxon takes Guyana’s oil money and doles out tiny dollops of charity to passive, pauperized Guyanese.  Profits and set asides for charity embody how free enterprise works.  Not Samuelson nor Stiglitz, but real life with real people.

Second, Mr. Routledge wasn’t crass; he didn’t state the obvious.  Exxon’s first duty is to its own constituency.  Investors, Managers.  Other workers.  All its stakeholders.  They vote for Exxon’s slate of directors, the team at senior levels.  They are owed.  Visions that reward.  Returns that are tangible, measurable.

Third, with those two in mind, all else are byproducts, secondary; some higher, some immaterial to Exxon’s plans for prospering to the max from Guyana’s wealth.  It is capitalism at its best (and its worst, from the victims’ standpoint).  This is what the Exxon Guyana hand was wise enough to skirt around, put as much distance as he could in his Guyana Proviso 2026.  Exxon is about Exxon.  Whatever is beyond that belongs elsewhere.

Fourth, a repetition now follows.  If Guyanese really want more from their patrimony, they will have to battle.  Not by going head-on in opposition to Exxon; that’s a losing effort.  There’s America, and its armada that can be summoned to set right a quarrelsome special relationship.  Guyana’s battling has to be more nuanced.  Though the PPP Govt seeks to deny this, it has to be a better guerilla fighter, more of a stealth operator.  There’s Guyana’s EPA.  Lots of visions and operations pass under that sensitive roof.  Sanctity of contract is still honored (it must be).  But Guyana must have its own timing.  How long it desires to receive its rightful share of profits.  How much it wishes to avoid a burdening cost bank.  A war could be fought on different front, using different tactics.  The PPP Govt has done so successfully with unions. 

The PPP Govt has won handy victories in elections, through fixing the territory to suit its interests, influencing outcomes.  Whither that identical PPP resourcefulness, PPP craftiness, PPP readiness to project the same with oil and the American leviathan, Exxon?

Fifth, Exxon has also been very skilled in piloting its own interests in other ways.  What is withheld.  Audits suspended between time and space.  Apologies to Alistair Routledge, but where Guyanese interests are being lynched.  What Mr. Routledge didn’t say was that Guyana’s leaders across the divide have to show some male testicles and some of that vital female endurance (think labor pains) to get Guyana to where it should be, and the Guyanese people to some different plain.  Preferably, a higher one.

Sixth, Mr. Routledge didn’t say it, but almost all Guyanese know it, the PPP as a party, and the other political parties exist with one vision prioritized: how to retain power or get into power.  He didn’t say that Exxon can and has tapped into and prospers from that ambition.  He didn’t have to say that Exxon can play them against each other, seek the one group that wouldn’t touch the company’s wealth gathering, and has succeeded handsomely in doing both.

Seventh, since Mr. Rouledge used the royal “we” in his Declaration of Georgetown, I use it, too.  We are here to make money.  Guyanese leaders, the Guyanese people, have their own duty.  To decide on Guyana’s destiny. 

When some grasp for power, some for money, others for liberty, there is how building this nation stands currently.  What Alistair Routledge was too polite to lay on the table (is to Exxon’s benefit), I did.  (Coming up: Firing the soul of the nation).

Gunboat Diplomacy: Without the Guns and Boats

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA 

Gunboat Diplomacy: Without the Guns and Boats

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

Washington has found that tariffs, sanctions and visa revocations do what cruisers once did, and Guyana should understand what that means for a small state in the middle of it.

The gunboat was never really about the gun. It was about the message that a small state’s choices had a price, set elsewhere and collected without a declaration of war. What has changed in the Western Hemisphere is that the gunboat no longer needs a hull. A tariff schedule, a Treasury designation, a revoked visa and a conditional credit line carry the same message, at lower cost and with a deniability the old navies never had.

Pedro Abramovay of Open Society makes a useful distinction in his recent essay on the future of multilateralism. The post-Cold War order, he argues, was built for a unipolar moment, tolerant of minimal states and austerity, and deaf to demands for shared prosperity. It is now being replaced not by a vacuum but by a contest between two models.

One is a multilateralism of strong states that insist cooperation be grounded in national and regional priorities. The other is raw might-makes-right, which treats sovereignty as something to be rationed. Latin America is where that contest is playing out in real time.

Coercion as an electoral instrument

The rightward drift across the hemisphere is real, but the causal story deserves care. Crime, inflation and exhausted incumbents have moved voters in Latin America for years, and no honest editorial should pretend Washington invented those grievances. What coercion adds is an accelerant and a price tag. When a government’s creditworthiness, tariff exposure or leaders’ travel documents depend on its alignment, an election stops being only a domestic choice.

It becomes a referendum on whether the country can afford to be defiant. Voters understand that arithmetic even when no one states it. Support for aligned candidates, whether through endorsements, rescue facilities or a sudden softening of sanctions, tells the electorate which outcome the powerful will reward.

This is the real innovation. Old interventionism needed a coup. The new version needs only to make dissent expensive and compliance visible, and then let the domestic politics do the rest. It leaves no occupation to resist, no dictator to denounce, and often a legitimately elected government at the end of the process. That makes it harder to name and harder to fight.

What the Venezuela precedent teaches

Abramovay lists, among the unravelings of the order, the seizure of a sitting-then-former Venezuelan president by the United States. For Guyana this cannot be filed as a distant event. It is the demonstration that the outer limit of coercion is now unmarked. If a neighbour’s head of state can be removed by force, the line between pressure and invasion has been redrawn by the party doing the pressing.

Guyana’s official posture has been to treat this as favorable. Venezuela’s claim on the Essequibo has been the central threat to the country’s territory for decades, and a Washington willing to act decisively looks like a guarantor. But a guarantee is not a right. Protection of this kind is rented, and the landlord sets the terms.

The rent being paid

Consider what Guyana has agreed to in this period: a third-country deportee framework whose vetting, accommodation and legal basis the public cannot examine; a security architecture of memoranda on air-domain awareness; and a deep-water port at Berbice whose financing has shifted from earlier Chinese interest toward American-linked capital. Each can be defended on its own terms. Together they describe a state aligning itself, and doing so without Parliament having meaningfully weighed in.

A legislature that has sat only a handful of times in nearly thirteen months is not a body that scrutinizes the terms of a hemisphere-shaping bargain.

Here Abramovay’s argument cuts against the government’s own instincts. His claim is that states able to deliver at home have more voice abroad. Guyana’s bargaining position is strongest not when it signs fastest but when its institutions are strong enough to say what it will not sign.

Secrecy is not a negotiating advantage. It is a signal to the counterparty that no domestic constraint exists, and counterparties price that in.

The oil state’s particular exposure

There is a second vulnerability. Guyana’s economy rests on a single resource under a contract negotiated in 2016, operated by a company whose home government is the same one now wielding the tariffs. A small state whose revenue, security guarantee and migration arrangements all run through one capital has no leverage left to trade. That is the condition coercion exploits best, and it is the condition Guyana has built for itself.

What a strong state would do

The answer is not defiance for its own sake. Guyana has genuine security needs, and no serious person argues it should dismiss American help. The answer is to convert dependence into terms. Publish the deportee framework and legislate its limits. Table the security memoranda in the National Assembly. Treat the CARICOM and Latin American groupings as insurance rather than ceremony, since the coalitions Abramovay describes, middle powers and Global South states acting together, are the only counterweight a country of this size can assemble. And press the legal route on the border, where the International Court of Justice remains one of the few arenas in which a small state and a large one are formally equal.

The gunboat has changed form, but the lesson of the old one still holds. Small states that are seen to be unconditionally aligned are not protected. They are simply taken for granted.

 

Democracy Is More Than Elections

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Democracy Is More Than Elections

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar- October 2026

The  anniversary statement issued by Vice President Jagdeo  invites a legitimate question: can a government credibly celebrate democratic restoration while exercising power in ways that weaken the institutions democracy requires?

October 5,1992, was unquestionably a defining moment for Guyana. The end of the PNC’s long period of electoral authoritarianism restored the people’s ability to choose their government through credible elections. That achievement should be protected, not reduced to a partisan talking point.

But the restoration of democracy cannot be measured only by whether votes are cast every five years. Democracy also requires an active Parliament, constitutional restraint, accountability to the public, space for dissent, independent institutions, transparent government, and meaningful opportunities for citizens and opposition representatives to question those who govern.

It is therefore striking that the PPP now invokes the very Constitution it once repeatedly condemned as defective, exclusionary and in need of fundamental reform.

For years, the PPP argued that Guyana’s constitutional arrangements concentrated excessive power in the Executive Presidency and failed to produce inclusive governance. Constitutional reform was presented as an urgent national necessity—not merely an academic exercise. Yet, once returned to office, the party appears to have discovered the political usefulness of the same architecture it had criticized so sharply.

While the PPP-C rightly condemned the attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, its record in office must also be judged by the health of Parliament as an institution. Guyanese have repeatedly raised concerns about long recesses, limited sittings and the extent to which the National Assembly has been permitted to function as a vigorous forum for scrutiny of executive power. A democracy requires more than elections; it requires a Parliament that meets regularly, debates freely and holds the Government accountable.

Democracy Cannot Be Selective

October 5, 1992, remains a defining date in Guyana’s history. It marked the return of credible elections after decades in which the people’s right to choose their government had been profoundly compromised.

But democracy is not merely the holding of elections or the installation of a government.  

That is why the PPP-C’s anniversary statement carries such crass irony. The party condemns the PNC’s era of party paramountcy and celebrates the constitutional order that followed 1992, yet it has repeatedly found political comfort in the very constitutional arrangements it once denounced as defective, excessively centralized and in need of urgent reform.

Constitutional Convenience

For years, the PPP argued that Guyana’s Constitution vested too much authority in the Executive Presidency and did not adequately secure inclusive governance, shared decision-making or genuine national unity.

Those arguments did not disappear because the PPP-C returned to office. If anything, Guyana’s oil wealth, expanding public expenditure and concentration of decision-making make constitutional reform more urgent now than at any point before.

Yet the promised reform of the constitutional order has again been deferred, while the Government enjoys the utility of the same powerful executive structure it once criticized. That is the contradiction: condemning constitutional excess when out of office, then embracing constitutional convenience when in office.

Parliament Is Not Optional

The issue is not that Parliament did not convene after the 2020 elections. It did. The issue is whether Parliament has been allowed to operate as a meaningful, consistent and independent check on executive authority.

The current Parliament has had only four named sittings over more than 13 months. More troubling, those sittings have been principally driven by Government business rather than by a broad parliamentary agenda that reflects the urgent concerns of citizens, communities, workers, pensioners, farmers, small businesses and the opposition.

A Parliament reduced to a forum for the Government to process its own legislative program is not functioning at its democratic best. The National Assembly is not meant to be an occasional administrative extension of the Executive. It is meant to be the people’s House: a place where ministers are questioned, public spending is examined, contracts and policies are challenged, petitions are heard, and the concerns of every region can be placed on the national record.

Government business is necessary. But it cannot be the only business that matters.

The Democratic Test

The PPP-C is correct that the 2020 election crisis represented a grave threat to Guyana’s democracy. The right of Guyanese to determine their government had to be defended.

But a government that invokes democracy must also accept its continuing obligations after the election has been won. Electoral legitimacy is not a blank cheque for executive dominance, prolonged parliamentary inactivity or the marginalization of representatives elected to question and scrutinize those in power.

The democratic test is not whether a government can point to its electoral mandate. Every government can do that. The test is whether it permits institutions to operate freely when they may be inconvenient, critical or politically uncomfortable.

Oil Wealth Demands Oversight

This is particularly important in an oil-producing Guyana. The country is now managing unprecedented revenues, major infrastructure programs, large procurement contracts, land allocations, environmental questions and far-reaching development decisions.

Those matters cannot be left substantially to Cabinet announcements, ministerial statements and executive discretion. They require continuous parliamentary examination and public disclosure.

Guyana does not need a Parliament that appears only when the Government requires legislation, supplementary funds, budgets or approval for its program. It needs a Parliament that sits regularly and has the time, tools and institutional independence to interrogate how public money is spent and whose interests are being served. 

A government cannot credibly speak of defending democracy while treating Parliament—the central institution of representative democracy—as optional. Elections give a government the authority to govern. Parliament subjects that authority to examination, challenge and public accountability.

The Executive may enjoy a parliamentary majority, but that does not mean the National Assembly should be sidelined. In fact, a commanding majority makes regular parliamentary oversight even more necessary, not less.

Constitutional Convenience

The central irony is hard to avoid. The PPP-C condemns the former PNC administration’s record of authoritarianism and party paramountcy, yet it has embraced practices that reflect the same unhealthy governing instinct: the elevation of executive control above institutional accountability.

No serious observer is suggesting that the present era is identical to the pre-1992 period. The histories, circumstances and scale of abuses are not interchangeable. But democratic decline does not always arrive through the open cancellation of elections. It can also develop through gradual normalization:

⇒ Parliament is delayed, marginalized or made perfunctory.

⇒ Major decisions are made without adequate public consultation.

⇒ Constitutional reform is repeatedly promised but indefinitely deferred.

⇒  State resources and information are controlled from the center.

⇒ Critics are dismissed as enemies rather than treated as participants in democratic life.

⇒ Transparency becomes a slogan rather than a governing discipline.

A democracy can retain elections and still suffer from an imbalance of power that undermines public confidence.

 A Promise Deferred

The PPP-C statement says it will ensure “the transparent management of public resources” and fight corruption “in all of its manifestations.” Those are welcome commitments—but commitments demand measurable proof.

Guyana’s oil wealth makes constitutional reform, parliamentary scrutiny and institutional independence more urgent than ever. Vast public revenues, major infrastructure contracts, land allocations, procurement decisions and development priorities cannot be left substantially to executive discretion. The larger the public purse, the stronger the guardrails must be.

A serious democratic agenda would include:

⇒ A clear, public timetable for constitutional reform.

⇒ Regular and robust sittings of the National Assembly.

⇒ Stronger parliamentary committees with real access to records, contracts and officials.

⇒ Full transparency in public procurement, oil-revenue management and major development projects.

⇒ Protection for independent media, civil society, whistleblowers and dissenting voices.

⇒ Reforms that reduce excessive concentration of authority in the Executive Presidency.

 The Test of October 5

The PPP-C is entitled to commemorate October 5, 1992. But it cannot own that date while ignoring its deeper meaning.

Democracy was not restored so that one party could replace another at the commanding heights of the state. It was restored so that no government—regardless of party, race, history or electoral majority—could operate beyond sustained public scrutiny.

The true tribute to the struggle for democracy is not another anniversary statement condemning the sins of yesterday’s rulers. It is the willingness to submit today’s rulers to the same democratic standards.

Guyana must reject party paramountcy in every form: the crude authoritarianism of the past and the constitutional convenience, executive overreach and institutional neglect of the present.

October 5 Belongs to Guyanese

The PPP-C is entitled to commemorate October 5, 1992. But that date belongs to all Guyanese—not to one party and not to any government.

Its meaning is larger than the defeat of one administration and the rise of another. It is the principle that no party, however popular or historically significant, should be permitted to dominate the State without meaningful oversight.

Guyana rejected party paramountcy in 1992. It must reject every modern form of it now: executive overreach, constitutional convenience, weakened parliamentary scrutiny and the belief that an electoral majority relieves a government of its duty to answer to the people