Citizen and outspoken commentator Jennifer Cipriani has taken to social media to deliver a powerful message: it’s time for Guyanese to hold their leaders accountable. Her remarks come in the wake of the tragic death of 11-year-old Arianna Younge, whose lifeless body was discovered in the pool of the Double Day Hotel in Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo, less than 24 hours after police wrongly claimed she had left the premises in a car.
Cipriani described the incident as a painful wake-up call-one that cut across ethnic and political lines and laid bare the failure of the Guyana Police Force and broader leadership. “It took the death of a child to show what ‘One Guyana’ really means,” she said, noting the rare unity in outrage and grief expressed across the country.
She urged both the Government and the Opposition to view public criticism not as hostility, but as necessary feedback—comparing it to customer service: It’s about performance; when the public speaks out, it’s a signal that something is wrong Leaders must evaluate and improve, not deflect and deny, she intoned.
Cipriani called on Guyanese to reject the culture of blind loyalty and political worship. She pointed out that Guyanese treat government officials like royalty, forgetting that their salaries, their vehicles, their security are all paid for by the taxpayers. “They work for us.”
She also spotlighted the stark inequalities in public services, that Guyanese likened to the tale of two cities. While ordinary citizens struggle with broken public healthcare and under-resourced public schools, government officials send their children to elite private schools and fly overseas for medical care.
“If they’re so confident about the job they’re doing, why aren’t their kids in public schools? Why don’t they go to the public hospitals?” she challenged. “Ask yourself why.”
With General and Regional elections approaching, Cipriani criticised the People’s Progressive Party (PPP)-led government for prioritising the silencing of dissent over development. She accused them of “rushing to update cybercrime laws” to target overseas activists who are “doing more for human rights in this country than anyone else.”
Cipriani also condemned the government’s aggressive land acquisition policies. She noted the pushed for law that can actually take your land and you have no recourse once they claim it’s for development. Last December the government used its and the joinder votes in the National Assembly to pass the Acquisition of Lands for Public Purposes Amendment Bill.
She recalled Guyanese have seen what happened to the land situation in Mocha/Cane View East Bank Demerara where residents were ruthlessly moved on the claim they are in the way of the construction of a new road. Cipriani noted that what we are now seeing is “apparently people are not in the way of the road, but we see big buildings, big developments going on there.”
She recalled the controversial Mocha/Cane View demolition of houses and business on the pretext they the building and homestead were in the path of the new road. Families were ruthlessly moved on the claim they are in the way of the construction of a new road. “They said it was for a road, but now we’re seeing massive developments—big buildings going up.”
In a passionate call to action, Cipriani urged Guyanese to abandon political idolisation and speak truth to power: “When you vote for somebody, you’re voting for them to do right by you, and when you see them going wrong you need to pull them in. as we say ‘pull them into fitness’. Not because you put somebody in power you have to defend every single thing they do.” We got to first change the mentality, she urged, advising Guyanese that such behaviour is keeping them down.
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