Dear Editor,
President Irfaan Ali’s six-week ultimatum on fraudulent driver’s licences has curdled into a stark symbol of his government’s duplicity on corruption. On 8–9 December 2025, he thundered that an audit across the GRA, Police, Ministry of Home Affairs, Public Service, and Government Efficiency had exposed a racket—persons securing practical certificates and licences without ever passing the theoretical exam, all digitally triangulated and identified.
“We have all the names,” he declared, offering a six-week amnesty up to around 20 January 2026 for offenders to surrender their ill-gotten licences and re-enter the process legitimately. His threat was crystal clear: fail to comply, and government would publish every name in the newspapers, suspend the licences, and launch prosecutions to “beat this corruption.” State media and officials echoed this vow through late December and early January, promising that “a lot of people will be sent home,” including facilitators deep within the system.
Yet January came and went. March is here. No list has materialized in any newspaper. No public wave of suspensions or prosecutions has followed. The bold promise dangles over Guyana like a rotting carrot—vivid at first, now limp and foul, a reminder that in this administration, theatrical outrage abounds but accountability evaporates.
This isn’t mere oversight; it’s a pattern. Amid billions of dollars allocated to the President’s own Office for “anti-corruption units,” “governance improvements,” “digitalisation,” and “integrity” task forces—all centrally controlled from the same political hub—the machinery funded by taxpayers can’t muster the simplest act of transparency: printing a list of names the state itself claims to possess.
Imagine the cat not just guarding the milk, but budgeting for the barn, hiring the watchdogs, and deciding who gets a sip—all while the saucer spills unchecked. Ali’s style is press-conference crusades: emotive “zero tolerance” rhetoric, sweeping announcements of data-driven reform, followed by embarrassed inertia once vested interests surface.
The licence scandal was the perfect test case—concrete, bounded, with “all the names” already in hand. No technical excuses apply. What’s missing is will. Instead of sunlight on the fraud, we get closed-door “fumigation,” where firings are whispered but names stay hidden, enforcement selective, and the public left to guess if friends, family, donors, or party favourites populate that unseen roster.
If purging one documented pocket of corruption proves too politically hot, what hope exists for sprawling anti-corruption architectures housed under the President’s direct thumb?
Each unfulfilled pledge—publicly delivered with fanfare—turns hollow, waved like a decayed lure to prove “intent” long after the rot sets in. This episode isn’t about licences; it’s about credibility. A leader who positions himself as chief administrator, investigator, judge, and executioner reveals the peril of unchecked power.
Citizens must hold the memory: on 9 December 2025, Ali started the clock and swore names would follow by January’s end. March proves him hollow. Any “reform” from this centre will be louder in launch than in legacy—a stage prop for headlines, mute when it matters. Demand the list. Demand the proof. Or watch the carrots keep rotting.
Yours truly,
Hemdutt Kumar
