Dear Editor
The recent public release from the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) regarding the $300-per-bag paddy subsidy is an affront to transparency. It offers a “feel-good” narrative while carefully cloaking over the hard data that would allow the public to verify where billions of tax dollars are actually going.
When we look at the government’s own publicized “Rice Revolution” math, the numbers don’t just fail to add up—they reveal a $600 million GYD gap that smells of administrative siphoning.
The Math of the Missing Millions:
The public was told that $2.9 Billion was the total investment for this support cycle (combining the $2.7B paddy subsidy budget with fertilizer and seed support). Yet, as of January 2026, the Ministry is only announcing a national payout of $2.1 Billion.
- The Promise: A budget for 9,000,000 bags of paddy at $300/bag.
- The Reality: A payout for only 7,000,000 bags ($2.1B ÷ $300).
- The Discrepancy: 2 million bags have vanished from the ledger, taking $600 Million in budgeted incentives with them.
The Yield Fraud:
The Ministry continues to boast of “record yields” of 40–45 bags per acre. However, if they are only paying out for 7 million bags across the 209,000 acres they claim were planted, the actual national yield is a dismal 33.5 bags per acre.
Either the “record harvest” was a political lie, or the farmers are being reaped twice—once by the weather and once by a system that is under-reporting their production to keep the $600 million difference in the shadows.
The Public Challenge
Since the GRDB claims their process is “rigorous” and “transparent,” we issue a direct public challenge. If there is no siphoning, and no “padded vouchers” are being prepared to absorb that remaining $600 million, the GRDB must immediately publish the Mill Weight Returns for the top 5 millers in the following regions:
- Region 2 (Pomeroon-Supenaam)
- Region 3 (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara)
- Region 4 (Demerara-Mahaica)
- Region 5 (Mahaica-Berbice)
- Region 6 (East Berbice-Corentyne)
We demand to see:
- Total Weight Received by these millers (in bags).
- Total Payout Disbursed to farmers for those specific bags.
- The Reconciliation of the $2.9 Billion total budget against the $2.1 Billion distributed.
A “direct request” for this information often disappears into the desk of a bureaucrat. Therefore, we are making this a public demand. Farmers are being told there is no more money, yet the government’s own budget shows $600 million is still “in the system.”
Where did the money go, and whose pockets is it lining? Show us the mill returns, or admit the math was a fiction.
Respectfully,
Hemdutt Kumar
