By Roysdale Forde S.C, M.P- It is astonishing that despite sitting on one of the most lucrative oil discoveries of the 21st century—pulling in a staggering US$76.1 million per day, this country, Guyana, under the rule of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), continues to sink deeper into the quicksand of bad governance, entrenched poverty, and environmental degradation. The national wealth that should uplift every Guyanese citizen has instead become a feeding trough for a small clique of cronies, family members, and politically connected elites.
I have got to be frankly honest, this PPP/C government is presiding over a kleptocracy, not a democracy.
While billions of US dollars are flowing into the national purse, almost all public servants—the backbone of national operations—remain scandalously underpaid. Indeed, the incumbent regime has demonstrated a frightening carelessness with the nation’s human resources. Nurses, teachers, police officers, and other vital workers live hand-to-mouth, while obscene state contracts are handed out to family, friends, and loyal political financiers.
Take one hard look at the award of major state contracts and a disturbing pattern emerges. Companies linked to government insiders are repeatedly handed multi-million-dollar deals without competitive bidding or adequate scrutiny. The private sector, which should be a partner in national development, has instead become a hostage to political favouritism.
Construction contracts, oilfield service deals, supply agreements for everything from pharmaceuticals to school meals—all flow in one direction: toward the chosen few. And if you’re not on that list, good luck doing business in Guyana without facing deliberate roadblocks or bureaucratic sabotage.
This is not development. This is disguised exploitation, and it is being orchestrated from the top down.
Just look at the contracts awarded to TEPUI, the company closely linked to social media personality, Mikhail Rodrigues popularly known as the Guyanese Critic. With no publicly known experience in the field of infrastructural works, no proven track- record, no audited financial statements and no evidence of ownership and possession of key equipment, that company was handed a $865 million contract to build a pump station at Belle Vue, West Bank Demerara.
There are other similar cases facilitated by this regime. Transparency is a joke. Procurement procedures are routinely circumvented, and when questions are raised, the public is met with silence or spin. This and similar actions by the government is literally sucking the moral life out of our society; this nation is spiraling into a vast economic abyss.
What we are witnessing is not merely incompetence. It is calculated plunder. It is the deliberate entrenchment of a system where access to state resources is determined not by merit, but by proximity to power. This is an important point because those who are not close to power could never hope to do better in this life under this dictatorial regime. Therefore, poverty is a sea of wealth.
I mean, the contradiction could not be more glaring: Consider this, Guyana is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, certainly the fastest- growing in the Caribbean, yet more than 40% of the population lives below the poverty line. Why? The answer is there for all to see. Oil revenues and profits are not tricking down to the masses; the benefits of big oil are reaching to those who are closest to the PPP/C regime. In some parts of this country, the condition of the vulnerable and poor has become progressively worse. This is not just economic failure—it is moral bankruptcy.
This is the reason why I am hard- pressed to really understand exactly what the outgoing chairman of Private Sector Commission (PSC) Komal Singh was trying to say when he made remarks, at the PSC’s 33rd Annual General Meeting. Certain sections of the media attributed the following statement to the now ex-chairman: “I can understand people living in poverty if there is no opportunity. In a country where there is an abundance of opportunity, I’m challenging anybody out there publicly who tell me they’re living in poverty come to me; I’ll take you out of poverty within one to six months,”
If that report is accurate then it is the most simplistic reasoning, I have heard in a long time. First, the fact that he, the chairman, has to encourage Guyanese to go to him to be lifted out of poverty is, in fact, a serious indictment against his posture on the economy of this country.
Second, the ex- chairman must know that availability of jobs and opportunities does not translate to prosperity or necessarily consists of a system to lift anyone out of poverty. Lifting people out of poverty demands more than available opportunities and jobs. If it were not so then hard- working public servants would not be living pay cheque to pay cheque; 31 calendar days away from suffering the worst kinds of indignities- the inability to pay rent, mortgage, put food on the table for their families, and pay other utility bills. Filling job vacancies is not synonymous with “getting up in life”. Nor is it a short or long cut to real sustained prosperity. Filling vacancies means just that filling vacancies; nothing more.
Further, I believe that the perceived success of the few chosen ones who are well- connected to political power could not be used as a good indicator of opportunities to get out of poverty or even the true condition of our economy. Poverty alleviation requires deliberate, sometimes, affirmative actions, strong leadership, integrity, fairness and justice, on the part of a caring government (the PPP/C is not a caring government) to begin to change the mindset of people, for whom the monetary and economic systems have offered an economic disadvantage.
I would argue, that in resource-rich countries, the curse is not the resource itself, but the failure of leadership. The oil wealth, which should have transformed the landscape of this country—modern hospitals, top-tier schools, resilient infrastructure, clean water, and food security—has instead become a tool of political patronage and self-enrichment.
Public health services remain threadbare. Environmental regulations are either toothless or totally ignored. The hinterland communities—indigenous and rural—are treated like distant colonies, forgotten until elections roll around. Meanwhile, urban centers like Georgetown groan under crumbling infrastructure and chronic flooding, made worse by weak environmental governance and climate inaction.
We, in Guyana, must wake up. The people must recognise that no amount of oil money can save a country governed by corruption and impunity. Accountability must become the national watchword. The Auditor General, the Integrity Commission, the Public Procurement Commission—these bodies must be given teeth, not reduced to rubber stamps.
I believe that, international watchdogs and Guyana’s diaspora have a duty to shine a bright light on what is happening. The international community must understand that Guyana is not just an oil frontier—it is a battleground between public interest and private greed.
It is my view that in order to change course, Guyana urgently needs:
- Transparent governance with open and competitive procurement processes;
- Living wages for public servants;
- Real social investments in health, education, and infrastructure that prioritise people over political optics;
- Good environmental stewardship that holds oil companies and government officials accountable;
- Anti-corruption legislation with real consequences for abuse of power.
The PPP/C regime must be held accountable not only for what it has done, but for what it continues to enable. For every hospital left unfinished, for every teacher forced to strike, for every child who goes to bed hungry in a country awash in oil wealth—there is political blood on their hands.
Guyanese, choice before us is clear: continue the spiral down the path of oil-fueled inequality and state capture, or demand a new government and political order where the nation’s wealth serves all, not a few.
