By Timothy Hendricks- The ancient maxim “charity begins at home” is not sentimental folklore; it is a principle of responsible statecraft rooted in the social contract. A sovereign government’s first and non-negotiable duty is to secure the welfare, safety, and prosperity of its own citizens. Regrettably, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration has, through prolonged policy vacuum and administrative inertia, abandoned this foundational obligation in its handling of the massive, unmanaged influx of Venezuelan nationals into Guyana.
Since 2018, Guyana has absorbed wave after wave of migrants fleeing Venezuela’s catastrophic economic collapse and political repression. Credible estimates now place the Venezuelan population in Guyana at more than 40,000 – equivalent to adding a new city the size of New Amsterdam virtually overnight. The overwhelming majority are concentrated in Regions One (Barima-Waini), Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), and Ten (Upper Demerara-Berbice), with growing communities in Georgetown, Parika, and along the coastal belt. These are not short-term visitors; many have settled into semi-permanent residence, accessing public hospitals, enrolling children in state schools, competing for housing and informal jobs, and, in some cases, qualifying for social assistance intended for the poorest Guyanese.
The consequences are no longer theoretical; they are acutely felt. In Region One, health centres in Mabaruma and Port Kaituma report maternity wards and clinics overwhelmed, with Guyanese mothers sometimes turned away or forced to deliver under sub-standard conditions. Schools in Pomeroon-Supenaam and the North West District have seen class sizes balloon as Venezuelan children are registered without corresponding increases in teachers, desks, or textbooks. In the informal economy – construction, domestic work, street vending, small-scale mining, and agriculture – Guyanese youth and unskilled workers face depressed wages and lost opportunities as employers exploit a growing pool of desperate labour willing to accept sub-minimum pay.
Housing markets in Charity, Parika, and parts of Georgetown tell a similar story: landlords increasingly prefer migrant tenants who pool resources to pay higher rents in cash, pricing young Guyanese families out of the market. These are not xenophobic anecdotes; they are documented realities reported by regional authorities, trade unions, and community councils.
Seven years into this historic migration, the PPP/C government has failed to produce a single comprehensive national policy on migration management, refugee status determination, work permits, or orderly integration. There is no public registration system, no transparent deportation protocol, no labour-market impact assessment, and no serious burden-sharing agreement with the UNHCR or other international partners. What passes for policy is a patchwork of ad hoc decisions, often contradictory, frequently opaque, and seemingly designed to facilitate uncontrolled entry rather than safeguard Guyana’s national interest.
This vacuum is not mere administrative oversight; it is a breach of constitutional duty. Article 149A of the Constitution mandates the State to protect the fundamental rights of all persons within Guyana’s jurisdiction, but that protection cannot be absolute where it directly impairs the rights of citizens. Public health budgets, school infrastructure, housing subsidies, and the CASH social safety net were calibrated for a pre-2018 population. To divert these finite resources to non-nationals without a clear, equitable, and sustainable, framework amounts to an unconstitutional inversion of priorities that privileges the claims of foreigners over the birthright of citizens.
Most disturbingly, the government appears blind to the strategic and national-security implications. With American military assets increasing in Caribbean waters and the ever-present risk of escalation in the Guyana – Venezuela territorial controversy, a sudden new exodus from Venezuela remains a real contingency. The presence of tens of thousands of Venezuelan nationals of undefined legal status inside our borders would, in such a scenario, constitute a profound vulnerability. History, from the instrumentalisation of refugee flows in the Balkans to the weaponisation of migration in the Mediterranean, offers sobering lessons. To leave this risk unaddressed is governmental negligence bordering on recklessness.
True charity is never the reckless dissipation of a nation’s resources. It is ordered, compassionate assistance extended only after the needs of one’s own household are secured. Guyana has a proud humanitarian tradition, but humanitarianism without borders, without policy, and without priorities is national suicide.
The PPP/C administration must now act decisively to honour its primary constitutional mandate:
1. Promulgate and publish a National Migration Policy within 90 days.
2. Establish properly staffed reception and registration centres in the affected regions.
3. Enforce existing labour laws and introduce minimum-wage protections in vulnerable informal sectors.
4. Negotiate realistic, funded burden-sharing agreements with the UNHCR and bilateral partners.
5. Conduct an immediate audit of the impact of migration on housing, education, and healthcare, with remedial allocations for affected communities.
Until these measures are implemented, the cry of struggling Guyanese families, displaced from livelihoods, priced out of homes, and sidelined in their own country, will only grow louder. After seven years of inaction, it is long past time the government remembered where home is, and who it is constitutionally bound to serve first.
