By Timothy Hendricks- In Guyana’s coastal villages, where the Atlantic’s relentless waves lap against eroding shorelines like a cruel reminder of unfulfilled promises, ordinary Guyanese scrape by on dreams deferred. This is an oil-rich nation with black gold gushing from the Stabroek Block at rates that should drown poverty in prosperity. Nevertheless, under the iron-fisted grip of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) regime, that wealth flows not to the toiling masses but to foreign prosecutors and American lobbyists, fattened on the money of taxpayers to go after political adversaries in a farce called justice.
Consider the audacity. The PPP/C government, led by a president who preaches “one Guyana” while practicing divide-and-rule, has funneled US$62,558.78 directly to Jamaican King’s Counsel Terrence F. Williams and his team of attorneys-at-law. This payment, rubber-stamped by the Ministry of Home Affairs on November 3, 2025, for their role in “representing” the Guyana Police Force in the extradition proceedings against Nazar Mohamed and his son Azruddin Mohamed, is really a bounty on dissent. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. As Azruddin Mohamed himself exposed, the total tab for these Jamaicans including flights, accommodations, and security, balloons into the hundreds of millions of Guyana dollars – over GY$13 million for this initial tranche alone, with more to come as the vendetta drags on.
And let’s not forget the puppeteers pulling the strings. In July 2025, ahead of the September elections that saw Azruddin emerge as a formidable opposition force with his We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party clinching 16 seats, the PPP/C shelled out about US$300,000 to American lobbyists. These Washington fixers, no doubt whispering in the ears of Republican congressmen like Carlos Gimenez, orchestrated a smear campaign branding Azruddin a “pro-Maduro puppet.”
It’s textbook authoritarian playbook: when the ballot box threatens your monopoly, buy foreign hitmen to bury your rivals in legal quicksand. The Mohameds, once PPP/C benefactors who bankrolled Irfaan Ali’s 2020 victory with transport and security, now face 11 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, and gold smuggling – charges spanning 2017-2024, suspiciously timed to coincide with Azruddin’s political ascent. Coincidence? Not really. In PPP/C Guyana, it’s called “governance.”
The extradition treaty with the U.S., inherited from colonial chains, mandates Guyana foot the bill for requesting nations’ lawyers. That is alright. But why escalate to importing Jamaican heavies when local prosecutors handled prior cases without breaking the bank? Attorney General Anil Nandlall’s mealy-mouthed defense – that it is “required” – reeks of deception.
Meanwhile, Glenn Hanoman, a reported Portugal-based attorney with alleged PPP/C ties, mysteriously joins the prosecution’s bench. Selective justice, indeed.
But spare a thought for the real victims – not the sanctioned tycoons, but the forgotten Guyanese eking out survival in this petro-state mirage. The World Bank’s latest overview, updated as of 2024, lays bare the scandal: despite oil’s bounty, poverty clings like damp rot. Using the upper-middle-income poverty line of US$5.50 per day (2011 PPP), 48.4 percent of Guyanese lived below the breadline in 2019—a slight dip from 60.9 percent in 2006, but still among the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean. Recent data? Scarce, because the PPP/C fears the mirror.
Echoing this, a 2024 Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) working paper paints an even grimmer portrait:Â 58 percent of Guyanese are mired in poverty (less than US$6.85 per day), with 32 percent in extreme poverty (under US$3.65 per day). Rural hinterlands, home to our Indigenous brothers and sisters, bear the brunt – over two-thirds of the extreme poor huddled there, their rivers polluted by neglect, their children stunted by malnutrition.
And the children? UNICEF’s stark 2021 assessment reveals 43 percent of Guyana’s population – disproportionately our youth – lives in poverty, with rural, urban poor, and Indigenous families hit hardest. Drilling deeper, the Borgen Project’s analysis of 2006-2022 data (the latest granular child metrics) shows 47.5 percent of children aged 16 or younger trapped below the line, while 33.7 percent of young adults (16-25) teeter on the edge.
In extreme cases, 20 percent of children endure severe food poverty, surviving on just two food groups daily; 40 percent scrape by on three or four. Stunting afflicts 25 percent of Indigenous children, underweight births hover at 16 percent. These aren’t statistics – they’re indictments. In an oil-soaked economy growing at 43.6 percent in 2024, projected to hit 11.8 percent in 2025, how does President Ali sleep knowing half our future starves?
Redirect those squandered millions, I say, hundreds of millions that could ignite hope instead of fueling vendettas. First, pour GY$100 million into school feeding programs, nourishing 50,000 children daily with balanced meals, slashing food poverty by a third and boosting attendance in hinterland classrooms. Second, invest GY$150 million in rural health outposts – mobile clinics and maternal wards in Regions 7, 8, and 9 – halving infant mortality from 23.2 per 1,000 and shielding Indigenous moms from the 74-per-1,000 adolescent birth rate, the Caribbean’s shame.
Third, channel GY$200 million to microfinance for women-led cooperatives in coastal villages, empowering 10,000 households with low-interest loans for kitchen gardens and small trades – lifting 20,000 from extreme poverty, as IDB models predict. Fourth, allocate GY$50 million to sanitation drives, building pit sanitary facilities and water pumps for 5,000 off-grid families, curbing waterborne diseases that claim our kids’ futures. Finally, seed GY$100 million in youth skills hubs – vocational training in green energy and aggrotech – equipping 15,000 young adults for oil-adjacent jobs, staunching the 39 percent emigration brain drain.
This is the fork in the road: a Guyana where oil uplifts the many, or one where PPP/C elites feast while the masses famish.
