The opposition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which holds 12 of the 29 opposition seats in Guyana’s 13th Parliament, has launched a blistering condemnation of the government’s handling of the country’s drainage and irrigation sector, arguing that despite unprecedented oil revenues and billions of dollars in public spending, Guyana remains dangerously vulnerable to flooding because of what it described as institutional decay, weak oversight, and political showmanship.
In a strongly worded statement issued last Friday titled “Institutional Failure and the Illusion of Resilience: Government’s 2026 Drainage Strategy,” APNU argued that the administration’s heavily publicised response to recent flooding in Georgetown was aimed at masking what it described as deep-rooted structural and managerial failures within the state’s drainage and irrigation system.
The opposition’s criticism came in the wake of days of intense rainfall and flooding across sections of Georgetown and surrounding communities, conditions that prompted President Irfaan Ali and senior government officials to conduct late-night inspections while attributing portions of the flooding to poor municipal maintenance, clogged drains, and indiscriminate garbage disposal.
But APNU argued that the government’s reliance on emergency measures demonstrates that, years into Guyana’s oil boom, the country still lacks a modern, resilient flood management system.
“While the President touts the deployment of 217 pumps as a ‘success,’ this reactive approach exposes a fundamental failure to transition from emergency management to sustainable management of the drainage system,” the partnership stated.
The opposition said that although it welcomed the government’s adoption of what it described as APNU’s proposed “all of government approach” outlined in its 2025 manifesto, the administration has failed to address the deeper structural problems undermining the sector.
At the centre of APNU’s argument is the contention that massive increases in state spending have not translated into institutional strengthening or engineering efficiency.
“Since 2020 funding has reached a staggering G$81.9 billion in the 2026 budget, thanks to oil revenue. The national drainage infrastructure is still precarious and heavily reliant on manual, high-intensity interventions rather than well-planned and systematic engineering,” the statement said.
Guyana, now one of the world’s fastest-growing economies because of offshore oil production led by the ExxonMobil consortium, has seen state revenues surge dramatically since commercial production began in 2019. Yet recurrent flooding, deteriorating drainage systems, and infrastructure failures continue to generate public concern, particularly in low-lying coastal communities where much of the population lives below sea level.
APNU argued that the government’s emphasis on “mega-infrastructure” projects masks what it called a dangerous management vacuum within the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA).
“The current strategy reflects a focus and obsession with advertising ‘mega-infrastructure’ projects, without the administrative capabilities and political will to ensure value for money,” the partnership declared.
The opposition pointed to findings from a 2024 Performance Audit, claiming they revealed chronic deficiencies in asset management and operational accountability.
“There is a glaring inconsistency between the high-tech procurement of 200 GPS tracking devices for machinery and the ‘low-tech’ failure of the NDIA to keep basic operational logbooks or a formalized Asset Management Policy,” APNU stated.
It further argued that the continued mixing of functional and defective equipment within the system reflects an agency overwhelmed by poor governance practices.
“As noted in the 2024 Performance Audit, the mixing of serviceable and unserviceable equipment persists, suggesting that we are merely throwing money at the problem without fixing the 2020-era management vacuum that exists,” the statement said.
“Buying more machines and ‘new pumps’ is a temporary bandage when the agency responsible for them cannot distinguish between functioning assets and scrap metal, this is not proper management.”
The opposition also accused the government of dramatically expanding capital expenditure without adequately increasing technical capacity within the NDIA.
“While billions are being spent on ten new pump stations this year, the NDIA’s technical staff has grown by only 12% since 2020, leaving over 30 senior technical positions vacant,” APNU said.
According to the party, this shortage of engineers and supervisory personnel has created what it termed a “supervision gap,” resulting in poor-quality infrastructure works and inadequate oversight of state contracts.
“This ‘supervision gap’ means that multi-billion-dollar contracts are implemented without adequate engineering oversight, leading to the ‘shoddy work’ that characterises the PPP government project failure culture,” the statement asserted.
APNU maintained that the crisis is no longer simply about drainage maintenance but about the state’s inability to manage rapidly expanding oil-financed public expenditure.
“The problem is institutional: you cannot manage a G$81.9 billion portfolio with a 20th-century staffing level, yet the PPPC government continues to prioritize political optics over the need for human resource development and institutional strengthening,” the party argued.
The opposition also accused the administration of deepening regional inequality by concentrating drainage investments along the coast while neglecting hinterland and riverine communities.
“While the A-Line and B-Line upgrades help large-scale coastal cultivation, riverine and hinterland communities in regions 1, 7, and 8 are facing a ‘resilience lag,’ receiving only 4% of the total D&I capital outlay,” APNU stated.
The party warned that unless major reforms are undertaken, Guyana risks pouring billions of dollars in oil wealth into projects that may ultimately fail because of weak institutions, inadequate planning, and poor oversight.
“To elevate this discourse, we must move beyond blaming the City Council and demand transparency on how NRF-subsidized billions are managed,” APNU said, while calling for “an immediate update on the vacancies that exist for regional engineers and a public disclosure of the NDIA’s Asset Management Policy to ensure that these ‘investments’ do not become the silted-up ruins of tomorrow.”
