The escalating battle over Linden’s toll revenue has revived a much broader charge by veteran trade unionist and Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) General Secretary Lincoln Lewis: that economic policies pursued by successive People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administrations, dating back to the Bharrat Jagdeo presidency, have systematically weakened Linden and inflicted lasting damage on its predominantly African working-class population.
Lewis has described that pattern as “economic genocide”—a term he first used in relation to Linden years ago as the once-thriving bauxite town experienced industrial contraction, job losses and declining economic opportunities.
In his Eye on Guyana August 30 opinion piece, addressing “The Linden Bridge Issue,” Lewis argued that the current dispute over municipal revenue must be viewed against that longer history.
Linden’s economic decline is well documented. The town developed around bauxite mining, but the industry contracted sharply from the 1990s onward. The Linden Legal Aid Centre describes sustained decline in bauxite operations as having produced high unemployment and severe economic consequences across Region 10.
By 2012, then Prime Minister Samuel Hinds told Parliament that fewer than 10 percent of Linden households had someone employed by the modern bauxite company, compared with more than 90 percent during the final years of DEMBA and the early period of the nationalised industry.
Lewis maintains that the consequences have extended beyond the loss of jobs to the erosion of the economic base that once supported workers, families and businesses throughout Linden.
“The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) under Jagdeo’s leadership, has engaged in a programme of economic genocide against the African community.”
Lewis argues that the issue is not simply whether a government makes an unpopular economic decision, but whether state authority is used in a manner that systematically deprives a community of its ability to sustain itself.
“When you deliberately set out to deny one’s economic right to self-determination through the abuse of state resources or state authority, you are, in effect, working to bring a group of people and their organisations to their knees, with the intent to destroy or re-shape and refashion them in your image and liking.”
That argument has acquired renewed relevance amid the latest confrontation over the Kara Kara toll.
Local Government Minister Priya Manickchand ordered the Linden Town Clerk to cease collecting tolls at Kara Kara, while also revoking the 2016 Linden Town Council Toll By-Laws. The Linden council challenged the move, arguing that it undermined its financial autonomy. Former Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan subsequently questioned Manickchand’s legal authority to revoke the by-laws.
The council later directed that the Kara Kara toll station be reopened. Town Clerk Lennox Gasper, however, refused to implement the instruction, saying there was no properly recorded council resolution authorising the reopening and that the legal status of the 2016 by-laws remained unresolved.
The financial consequences are severe. Linden Mayor Dominique Blair has warned that stripping the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge of its toll revenue has placed the municipality under serious financial strain, effectively removing a vital source of income used to keep the town functioning. The Kara Kara Bridge alone generated approximately G$70–77 million annually for the Linden Town Council—a substantial stream of revenue that the municipality now no longer controls.
It represents millions of dollars taken away from a cash-strapped municipality that must still finance daily operations, maintain public infrastructure and provide essential services to residents. The council is now being forced to operate with a major hole in its revenue base, raising a fundamental question: if Linden is expected to deliver services to its people, why is the municipality being deprived of one of its most dependable sources of locally generated income?
Government, meanwhile, has seized on concerns over the council’s financial accountability and the long-running backlog in its audited accounts — a problem that is hardly unique to Linden and extends to municipalities across Guyana, including councils dominated by the PPP. Yet while the Government cites accountability as a justification for withholding the toll revenue, the council has proposed a 50 percent reduction in the toll as a compromise, a proposal the Government says it will review.
For Lewis, however, the toll dispute is merely the latest chapter.
“The trade union community has suffered from it and continues to bear the brunt of it. The Town Councils and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils the PPP does not control have seen the impact of it. The Linden toll bridge is another reminder, for that bridge is situated in a region and African dominated community the PPP has no political control over.”
He argues that Linden’s experience should concern the wider labour movement and civil society.
“And if we think it is only Linden today, it was Georgetown yesterday, the Guyana Trades Union Congress or the labour movement, and other political organisations, and it won’t affect us, I say to all, without exception—it will come to your door soon.”
Lewis is calling for a broader response across ethnic and political lines.
“We have got to find a way to get up, with one accord, including persons from the non-African community who believe in justice and fair play.”
He concludes with a warning borrowed from German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller:
“When they come for you, no one will be there to speak for you.”
The present toll confrontation therefore sits at the intersection of local democracy, municipal finances, economic development and Linden’s unresolved post-bauxite crisis. Whether the dispute ultimately turns on the legality of toll collection or becomes another chapter in the town’s long struggle for economic independence remains to be determined.
