Guyana Development Bank: Can be great, Can be grotesque

THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM♦ JUNE 2026

Guyana Development Bank: Can be great, Can be grotesque

The PPP Govt-initiated $40 billion Guyana Development Bank (Bank) can be great. Ordinary Guyanese, poor but harboring inspired ideas, lack capital, but an opportunity beckons. Opportunity to rise from where they are to what they envision could be, should be. Again, compliments to the PPP Govt for this brainchild. What has high potential for individual, family, and community prosperity? Let it never be said that I didn’t extol the government.

Much has been written about the Bank. Its innate goodness, noble charter, inspiring character. Gnawing concerns persist. Still, no tainting to this offering by dealing in who defends for a dollar. Or the rancidly partisan who behold only the worst. I see potential for the worst malfeasances in this Bank. I detect that it can be a lifeline to Guyanese who need the monetary boost. Above bottom-house, beyond street corners, out of the economic lowlands so prone to floods of woes that there’s weeping. Only weeping.

I stated my thinking, position. Another is presented. Three precedents offered. Should suffice. There is a Natural Resource Fund Act/Law. I point not to loopholes. I point to its demand for “transparency and accountability.” Who argues with laws with such clauses embedded? Plus, withdrawals used for “national development priorities.” Music. Easy listening. Guyanese listened, heard. From a Guyana Government official, that rarest of rarities: Guyana Scholar. He disclosed how the billions (U.S.) withdrawn from the NRF were spent in three words: “national development priorities.” Three words “transparency and accountability”, as enshrined in the NRF Law, begat three more: “national development priorities”, also incorporated in that same law. No more. Not a fourth word.

If this is what Guyanese get for spending clarity from a Guyana Scholar, what prospects from Guyana’s handpicked political dunces?

Not one dollar, not one million, not one billion, could be shared, relative to spending specifics. Commingling conquering accountability. The words of a law of Guyana taken and hurled into the face of citizens, by one of its reputed best. It’s the raw reality of Guyana’s “accountability” for its largest savings account, pursuant to law. What fate awaits the Guyana Development Bank?

Next, there’s a law birthed 14 years ago that empowers Guyanese to access unclassified, nonconfidential, non-national security information.

The law rusts, rots. Guyanese seeking access have been mostly dismissed. Light slap. Other petitioners got dismissed, then degraded. The law is there. The mechanism is there. Where is the access to information sought, as the law provides? From that second precedent, I move to the $40 billion Guyana Development Bank. Would obscurity to protect be among the primary workings of this multibillion-dollar Bank? Protect who and for what?

Ignored today are favoritism, cronyism, and nepotism. May those never dawn.

Only the Bank’s honest duty, transparency, and accountability. What road ahead for this Bank that could be a flagship of incorruptibility? The identification of its controllers (likely already selected) should inform accordingly.

Last, there is the crime of statutory rape. When underage children are abused, that’s statutory rape. Official reports state that 584 statutory rapes were committed in the last five years (2020-25). The law mandates the charge of statutory rape. Children cannot consent. Which rapists were charged? How many of the 584 statutory rapists were even approached by the Guyana Police, other government institutions? Dr. Vindya Persaud (Minister) and Dr. Clifton Hicken (Police Commissioner) are respectfully invited to help: how many charged? Only the number. Easy for a government grown fond of its own statistics.

For the PPP Govt, for PPP leaders, there are some questions. Why are lawbreakers (statutory rapists) elevated to parliament as lawmakers? Why are they not charged? There’s One Guyana optics. And a large constituency to be kept happy. But, by God, at the price of parliamentary obscenity? Even when children are assaulted, and one ending it all. It calls for an extraordinarily obscene breed of political leaders to condone first, then reward.

Thus, three examples: Oil Fund billions, access to information, and statutory rapes, as contexts. There are governing laws for each, like the Bank. How different will the Guyana Development Bank be? The people’s patrimony and prosperity, their peace of mind, jeopardized. The lifeblood of democracy (information) blocked, poisoned, then extinguished. Protection of Guyana’s young bartered for filthy political mileage. Laws exist for all three areas.

Yet there are these inarguable, destructive conditions in Guyana’s environment. Now comes this $40 billion Guyana Development Bank. It can be a boon for the poor and hopeful.