Mr President, Bring the Urgency Home

 

592GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

  Mr President, Bring the Urgency Home

---

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar November 2026

That is the question raised by Guyana’s absence from the Commonwealth Trade Portal’s initial group of 15 pilot markets. The platform has launched with country coverage that includes the Bahamas, Barbados and Belize. Guyana is not among them. The Commonwealth says integration will proceed in phases, but its public launch material does not explain why Guyana is outside the first group.

A phased rollout explains how the platform is being introduced. It does not explain Guyana’s position within that process.

For a government that so energetically promotes the country’s investment opportunities, this is a matter requiring an answer—not a passing footnote.

The issue is accountability: whether the administration brings the same determination to facilitating private enterprise that it brings to securing attention, partnerships and financing for the initiatives it champions.

The urgency abroad

According to the government’s November 3 account, President Ali called for biodiversity protection to generate economic opportunities, jobs and benefits for communities. He also outlined plans for an investment and finance forum in June 2027, potentially in London, to mobilize conservation financing.

These are legitimate ambitions. Environmental protection and commercial development need not compete. Conservation can be part of a serious economic strategy.

But the President’s emphasis on translating ambition into tangible benefits establishes a standard against which his own administration should be judged.

If international partners must move beyond declarations, so must the government. If financing must lead to jobs, domestic institutions must help businesses reach the markets in which those jobs can be sustained. If delay is unacceptable in advancing a presidential initiative, it should be equally unacceptable when an enterprise is waiting for information, administrative action or access to foreign exchange.

The demand for practical results cannot travel in only one direction.

The readiness question at home

The Commonwealth Trade Portal is designed to bring together tariff information, trade data, market requirements and business contacts. Its purpose is particularly relevant to smaller enterprises trying to assess opportunities without the resources of a large company.

That makes Guyana’s integration a business-development issue.

The greater the opportunities the government advertises, the stronger the case for ensuring that reliable information about this market is readily accessible. Promoting a destination and preparing its institutions to support commercial activity should be complementary responsibilities.

Yet we do not have a public explanation of Guyana’s absence from the initial roll-out of the portal’s country coverage. Guyana’s integrated page is missing. A stark anomaly , for the “fastest growing economy” in the world.

Was Guyana invited to participate? Did it seek inclusion? What information and technical preparation were required? Were the necessary submissions ready? Which national agency owns the process? Has the Commonwealth assigned Guyana to a later phase for reasons unrelated to domestic preparedness?

These questions matter because the answers determine where responsibility lies.

It would be premature to declare that bureaucratic failure caused the omission. The published material does not establish that. Equally, there is no basis for treating the words “phased rollout” as proof that nothing requires examination.

The government should replace speculation with a documented account.

If the work is complete and Guyana is awaiting the Commonwealth’s timetable, say so. If information or coordination remains outstanding, identify it. If no agency has been given clear responsibility, correct that immediately.

Businesses need an owner, a timetable and a result.

“I am always in the queue”

For me, this question of institutional readiness is not abstract. I am always in the queue for foreign exchange.

That experience exposes the distance between being told that an economy offers exceptional opportunities and obtaining the means to pursue them.

My experience is not a national survey. But the wider difficulty has been documented. The US State Department’s 2026 investment assessment reports continuing business difficulties and delays in accessing US dollars, with potential consequences for operations and transactions. The government itself acknowledged business delays in November 2025, while disputing that these amounted to a systemic shortage.

Banking sources have told me that government requirements receive priority while businesses wait. That is an explanation given to me, not an allocation policy I have independently verified. It nevertheless raises a question that deserves a transparent answer.

Do government transactions receive preferential access? If so, through what arrangements? How are commercial requests sequenced? What waiting times do businesses face? What mechanism exists for addressing persistent delays?

The authorities should explain the rules rather than leave businesses dependent on informal accounts of how the system works.

An assurance about overall market stability does not settle the problem of a business unable to complete a particular transaction. The government’s acknowledgment of delays makes the distinction between aggregate availability and timely access especially important.

A supplier cannot be paid with a statement about economic confidence.

Not the same problem, but the same test

Foreign-exchange access and trade-portal integration are different issues. The available evidence does not establish a common administrative cause.

They do, however, expose the same test of governance: how effectively does the state help businesses move from opportunity to execution?

A government can be highly visible in investment promotion while leaving essential questions about implementation unanswered. It can organize ambitious initiatives while enterprises struggle to navigate ordinary processes. It can speak persuasively about job creation without demonstrating that the systems supporting employers receive comparable attention.

That is why economic promotion must be judged alongside the experience of the business trying to operate.

Can it obtain the information it needs? Can it identify the responsible agency? Can it get a decision within a predictable period? Can it make an overseas payment without an uncertain wait?

These are not secondary concerns. They are the conditions under which the government’s promises become commercially meaningful.

Conservation is not the objection

The argument is not that President Ali should abandon biodiversity diplomacy or stop seeking international financing.

Nor does seeking such financing, by itself, establish impropriety or a desire for unearned money.

The objection is to any imbalance in administrative urgency: an energetic state when advancing its own initiatives, but an opaque or slow-moving one when businesses need practical support.

The President’s stated ambition to connect conservation with investment and employment makes that imbalance more—not less—important to examine. If livelihoods are the objective, business capability must be part of the delivery mechanism.

Government cannot treat enterprise as the anticipated beneficiary of every speech while leaving enterprises uncertain about the systems on which they depend.

Publish the work, not another assurance

The immediate demands should be straightforward.

The government should identify the agency coordinating Guyana’s Commonwealth Trade Portal participation, disclose the requirements and status of onboarding, and publish the expected timetable. It should explain who will validate and maintain the national information once integration occurs.

It should also clarify foreign-exchange allocation arrangements and acknowledge the difference between currency existing somewhere in the financial system and a business obtaining it when needed.

Guyanese firms are not wholly excluded from the portal: they can research pilot destination markets, and qualifying enterprises can seek inclusion in the MSME Directory. Those are useful opportunities, but neither is equivalent to integrated national market coverage.

The appropriate response is therefore neither to exaggerate the omission nor minimize it. It is to establish responsibility and secure delivery.

Mr President, bring the urgency home.

Apply to domestic business facilitation the same insistence on action that you bring to international initiatives. Show what has been completed, explain what remains outstanding, and give businesses a timetable against which performance can be judged.

Guyana’s opportunities should not merely be advertised to the world. Its institutions should be organized to help Guyanese businesses seize them.