Debt, Deceit, and the Dispossession of a Nation–Guyana’s Oil-Fueled Self Destruction

History rarely repeats itself exactly, but in Guyana’s case, it rhymes with the tragedy of too many nations who once stood on the cusp of greatness, only to be swallowed by greed, misgovernance, and the insatiable machinery of global finance.

What we are witnessing in Guyana today is not economic development. It is economic extraction, masked as prosperity. It is the reckless courting of debt, US$5.06 billion in public and publicly guaranteed debt as of mid-2024, and rising, while gold, bauxite, forests, and now oil are handed over like dowries in a neocolonial marriage. Banks and bondholders, domestic and foreign, are thrilled to lend. But they are not lending to build resilience. They are lending to extract, from Guyana’s future generations.

Guyana’s current leaders boast of being able to “service the debt.” That’s easy when the oil flows, prices are high, and interest rates are low. But any global economist will tell you, oil is a volatile mistress, and the world is already pivoting. As AI-driven industries demand solar, nuclear, geothermal, and hydrogen energy sources that are cleaner, cheaper, and decentralized, the black gold beneath Guyana’s waters will one day become a stranded asset. And when that day comes, the debt will remain.

Let us not forget what happened to Venezuela, a country that once enjoyed vast oil wealth, only to descend into hyperinflation, hunger, and exile. Let us not forget Nigeria, decades of oil exports, trillions of dollars, and still a majority of the population living in multidimensional poverty. Angola, Ecuador, Iraq, the list goes on. The common denominator?  an overreliance on fossil fuel exports, paired with uncontrolled borrowing and underinvestment in human development.

Guyana is now sprinting down that same path. The 2024 mid-year report showcases aggressive capital expansion under the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP), G$677.9 billion, but with no proportional investment in the foundations of resilience, universal “quality” healthcare, transformative education, pension security, and rural development. Meanwhile, the country remains plagued by crime, youth unemployment, infrastructural decay outside the capital, and systemic inequality.

Worse yet, while the oil consortiums, led by foreign supermajors, repatriate their profits and amortize their cost recovery, the people of Guyana are handed potholes, poisoned rivers, and a climate bill they didn’t cause. The environmental destruction from weak enforcement, wafer-thin environmental bonds, and unregulated flaring will haunt coastal and hinterland communities long after the last barrel is pumped.

And where are the social safety nets? A nation that boasts of billions in export revenue still cannot guarantee food security for its Indigenous communities, clean water for its interior towns, or secure jobs for its graduates. The same banks and multilateral lenders who now flood the country with credit lines will, in a decade, demand austerity, wage freezes, subsidy removals, and privatization of national assets when repayments falter.

This is not development. It is a textbook case of wealth transfer from the periphery to the core, from South to North, under the banner of “growth.” It is economic colonization facilitated by gleaming dashboards, multibillion-dollar contracts, and a domestic elite willing to mortgage the future for personal gain.

The tragedy is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Guyana could have invested this historic oil windfall into building a sovereign wealth fund of integrity, decoupled from political interference. It could have prioritized low-carbon industrialization, quality universal education, robust healthcare, and infrastructure that connects, not just glitters.

But instead, it is building monuments of glass on foundations of sand.

And when the tide of global energy transition comes, and it will come, the debts will remain. The banks will be repaid. And the people will be left behind, once again.

Unless Guyana changes course today, it is not building a future. It is burying one