There was a time when Guyana’s newfound oil wealth seemed poised to lift a nation long burdened by poverty and political division into an era of progress and shared prosperity. That time has passed, or rather, been revealed for the illusion it was.
Today, any investor seriously considering a long-term stake in Guyana must ask themselves a fundamental question: Am I naïve, willfully blind, or simply too greedy to care?
Because no sober-minded individual, armed with facts, not brochures, could survey the political, legal, and ethical landscape of Guyana in 2025 and reasonably conclude that this is a safe, stable, or morally defensible place to do business.
Let’s begin with the Attorney General’s own words. Just last week, Anil Nandlall defended the decision to charge dozens of protesters, some of them teenagers and community activists, under anti-terrorism legislation, declaring:
“We couldn’t have found a better charge.”
Think about that. The chief legal officer of the country is now comfortable branding civilians, many of them Afro-Guyanese, as terrorists for engaging in political protest, civil unrest, or merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If this is the language of justice at the top, what should investors expect when contracts are disputed, labor unrest arises, or local partners fall out of favor?
This is not law and order. It’s political weaponry cloaked in legality. And investors, by entering this space, risk entangling themselves in a system where arbitrary enforcement, reputational blowback, and asset insecurity are not hypotheticals, they are standard operating risk.
Guyana ranks among the most corrupt countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Billions in contracts are awarded without transparency. State tenders routinely go to politically connected insiders. Oversight bodies are weak or toothless. Whistleblowers are punished. The media is bullied. And procurement laws exist more in theory than practice.
Worse still, the lines between public office and private enrichment are blurred beyond recognition. Government ministers preside over portfolios that inexplicably enrich their friends and families. Land is seized from the poor and quietly handed to the elite. Oil revenues vanish into a murky abyss of off-budget expenditures and backdoor deals.
Is this the environment in which any ethical or risk-conscious investor should pour their capital?
The Guyana Police Force is not trusted, not by the people, and increasingly, not by its own members. Bribery, political intimidation, and selective enforcement are well-documented. Dissenters are surveilled. Protesters are arrested on trumped-up charges. And in the recent case of 11-year-old Adrianna Younge’s death, no justice, only silence.
Parts of the judiciary, particularly at the magistrate level, have become instruments of delay, deflection, and partisan shielding. Meanwhile, those in the ruling elite are never held accountable, regardless of the evidence against them.
In short, if you’re an investor counting on rule of law, contract enforcement, or the neutral adjudication of disputes, you’re betting on a fantasy.
Guyana’s most persistent and destructive disease remains ethnopolitical apartheid. Government contracts, public sector employment, and access to land and opportunity are often determined by ethnicity and political loyalty, not merit or fairness.
If you’re an Afro-Guyanese entrepreneur, you’re more likely to face state harassment than support. If you’re an Indo-Guyanese with the right political connections, doors open. For foreign investors, this means your local partnerships, and your political alignments, will define your fate, not your product or value proposition. Consequently your potential business partners are liable to be untalented, greedy, family and favorites of the ruling government. They will simply be unable to help your business thrive.
And in this climate, social unrest is not a risk, it is inevitable.
Finally, let’s return to the Attorney General’s terrorism remarks. If a government is prepared to invoke terrorism laws against its own citizens, what assurances exist that it won’t do the same to critics, to labor unions, to activist shareholders, or to you?
What will the headlines say when your company is caught up in a protest zone and accused of “inciting public fear”? What will happen when you demand regulatory fairness and are met with silence, or worse, hostility? In a country where public dissent is rebranded as terrorism, there is no red line the state will not cross.
Invest at Your Own Risk—And at Your Own Moral Cost
Let us be frank, the money to be made in Guyana comes with significant risk. The wealth is tainted. It comes with strings, political, ethical, reputational. And it comes at the cost of partnering with a regime that is actively dismantling democratic norms, exploiting ethnic division, and criminalizing resistance.
You may see an initial profit. But the people see betrayal and therefore a reckoning is coming, which will destroy all of your hard work and stockholder wealth. You were warned.
To invest in Guyana today without demanding systemic reform is to validate oppression, excuse corruption, and bankroll impunity and at considerable risk to your stockholders. And when the reckoning comes, as it always does, you will not be able to say you didn’t know.
