Pres Ali on fire; Guyanese go up in smoke

Pres Ali on fire; Guyanese go up in smoke

OPINION BY: GHK LALL September 2026

On each occasion that I think I am the craziest person in this swath of South America, there’s someone crazier than I can ever be.  And don’t be mistaken.  It’s not dollars and cents crazy.  Try a million dollars crazier, maybe as much as a billion.  These are the circumstances that ran through the mind, then became stick.  Because the idea stuck.

Try hand and luck.  Take the plunge.  Apply for a GY$3 million loan from the sparking new, and promisingly different, Guyana Development (GDB).  Why not?  It’s money up for grabs, and a sweet bargain from the PPP Govt is as good as any.  The first hiccup came as a warning.  Made me pause.  Think things over.  Then, the second hiccup came, thanks to the good and caring offices of Guyana’s erudite president, Dr. Ali.  Whatever hesitation I had before came to a full reversal.  Not I.  Me nah dah stupidee. 

The first warning hiccup sneaked into the consciousness in the form of a question.  What if the loan application is leaked into the public space?  Jesus Christ!  There would be hell to pay; it would be the end of me.  Follow the thread, please.  He duz baad taak de PPP Guvement, but he run fuh barrow the millions frum de same people he cuss.  If there is any Guyanese who see reasoning with that kind of mentality, please come forward for a ringside seat.  Is he not the same man that cast a suspicious eye at the minister and the bank managers even before the latter was name?  Did he not have the audacity to ask some hard questions of the same new bank, where the millions are not enough for him to put out his paws?  Whoever thinks any diehard or PPP hardhead has time for nuisances, such as it is not Excellency Ali or Dr. Jagdeo’s money, had better think again.  I was hanging on a string.  Should I change my mind and let the GDB loan facility go to waste?  Or do I step boldly forward?

Pres Ali then came to the rescue and sealed the decision.  No more thinking of, no longer applying for, a loan from the GDB.  Not even for a $100 to give to a homeless brother or sister down on their luck.  As an aside, they outright reject any $20 offering.  This is to what the once prized ‘Malali’ has now degraded.  According to the media releases, borrowers from the GDB will be honored by having their names placed in the public domain.  Whoever is thrilled at that development can have it.  Whoever sees a positive in that idea is so far gone as to be beyond salvaging.  Did somebody say it is a branch of Pres Ali’s vaunted transparency (on which he is yet to deliver)?

In my time, I have come across some real hairbrained situations.  The GDB publishing of borrowers’ interest and approval must rank right up there among the biggest losers.  Is the president hallucinating?  Wherever he is at, and whatever is his objective, I can’t help thinking that he believes with all his heart that this is a great, big, idea that is unmatched anywhere that sound banking practices are in operation. 

He is right.  It is unmatched, but not in the way that the president may be thinking.  In short, bankers and lenders do not go near to what sounds and looks like some half-baked and half-dead vision. 

Whichever the school Pres Ali that attended, I must remind myself to steer clear of it.  The challenge for me is that whenever there is the belief that Guyana’s president can’t descend into the unknown, he proves everyone wrong, by doing precisely so.