Dear Editor,
I write to invite your readers to a sober reflection on the nature of national transformation, using two small nations as our comparative case studies. This is a scholarly consideration of the institutional and leadership prerequisites for development.
In 1994, Rwanda experienced one of the most catastrophic humanitarian tragedies in modern history. In approximately 100 days, nearly one million citizens—roughly 15% of the population—perished in a man-made genocide while the international community stood by. The question that history posed to Rwanda was simple: would it collapse into perpetual victimhood, or would it rise? Rwanda chose the latter. It did not merely survive; it rebuilt with deliberate, disciplined, and visionary leadership, finding its architect in President Paul Kagame.
For a nation that effectively restarted in 1994, the imperative was to think ambitiously, act decisively, and work collectively. Crucially, national team-building of this magnitude is impossible without transparency and accountability at the highest levels of leadership. This is the fundamental dividing line between what we may term “Third World thinking” and the developmental mindset that has distinguished Rwanda. It is also, regrettably, what separates Rwanda from Guyana.
The scaffolding of any nation-building project is the assembly of sustainable domestic financial capacity. In 1997—less than three years after the genocide—Rwanda made an aggressive move toward self-sufficiency by rebuilding its tax system. The President personally ensured that all top public servants and Ministers understood that no one was to interfere with the revenue system. He practiced what he preached in his own mode of living. The message was unambiguous: the Treasury was sacrosanct.
President Kagame then made his defining move by collaborating with the UNDP to construct Vision 2020, launched in the year 2000. This was a 20-year plan built on six foundational pillars: good governance; human resource development; private sector-led development; infrastructure development; high-value, market-oriented agriculture; and regional integration. It was an ambitious long-term framework that many doubted, particularly within Africa.
It is now 2026. Rwanda has proven that it can be done. The bedrock was—and remains—less graft, less corruption, more transparency, and more accountability.
Where, we must ask, is Guyana’s 20-year plan? We have an annual plan by way of the national budget, each iteration conceived in the mind of one man, Bharrat Jagdeo. The more we observe, the more apparent it becomes that he is making it up as he goes along. By June 2026, the Government had already changed the plan the Minister of Finance presented in January 2026. This is the extent of the policy incoherence occurring in Guyana with respect to economic planning. The State Planning Secretariat in Guyana is dead.
Consider the empirical evidence. In Rwanda, tax revenue as a share of GDP rose from 8.5% in 2000 to 15.5% in 2020. Guyana, by contrast, moved from 20.9% in 2000 to 10.6% in 2020—and that was before oil. This trajectory explains, in measurable terms, how much of our tax revenue is being leaked to corruption relative to Rwanda.
What Rwanda possesses is fiscal independence generated domestically through the strength of its revenue authority. In Guyana, the companies in our largest sector—oil—do not pay taxes. If the largest economic actors are exempt, by what logic should the rice farmer pay? Across the country, there is no “buy-in” into the idea that paying taxes is a civic good under the PPP. It simply means more money for those in power in the PPP to squander.
In 2000, Rwanda financed 39% of its budget from tax revenues; by 2025, that figure had risen to 52%. Guyana moved in the opposite and detrimental direction. In 2000, we financed 96% of our budget from tax revenues; by 2025, only 32% was financed from GRA taxes. Guyana continues to borrow on the lives of the children of tomorrow by pledging their right to a good life.
The evidence and trends suggest that more than 30% of expenditure in Guyana has been wasted annually since the PPP returned to office in 2020—whether through deliberate diversion to the PPP family and friends or through poor decision-making and naked incompetence. More than $300 billion was leaked or wasted in 2025 alone.
The Guyanese people must take stock of what is being done to our country’s economic foundations. I would like to hear more from the WIN Team and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Azruddin Mohamed, on what they will do to fix this destruction being inflicted by the PPP on Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Khemraj Harryram
Discussion