Chartered accountant and commentator Christopher Ram has flayed the government over what he sees as growing evidence of the Resource Curse here accompanied by a series of other major challenges such as corruption and institutional weakness.
In the 198th column in his oil and gas series appearing in today’s Kiskadee Watch Ram reeled off a litany of woes afflicting the country which he said pointed in the direction of the Resource Curse which is a phenomenon that broadly describes resource rich countries like Guyana being overtaken by corruption, concentration of capital in one sector to the detriment of the rest of the economy and people becoming poorer instead of being better off.
Noting that central government current and capital expenditure between 2021 and 2025 amounted to a staggering $4.19 trillion, Ram said that this came in the backdrop of poor accountability for these monies at level of the Office of the Auditor General and the Public Accounts (PAC) of Parliament which is severely backlogged in its examination of the national accounts.
Ram, also an attorney at law, said: “Central government current and capital expenditure between 2021 and 2025 amounted to about G$4.19 trillion. Yet the PAC remains years behind. The latest Treasury Memorandum I can identify concerns the 2016 Public Accounts and was tabled in 2023! This is totally unprofessional and irresponsible”.
He also pointed out that at present there is no Public Procurement Commission functioning. The last commissioners’ terms expired in July 2025, and successors have not been appointed. Meanwhile he said that hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts continue to be awarded. “Ministries procure, NPTAB operates and Cabinet retains its statutory no-objection role in major procurements, while the independent constitutional body created to monitor the system has no commissioners. July 2025 did not arrive unexpectedly; the expiry date was known three years beforehand. This pattern defines the post-2020 era”, he charged.
He also hammered the Integrity Commission for not having any impact. “Its composition is itself a classic case of loyalty over competence, further weakening confidence as allegations of corruption involving Ministers, parliamentarians, contractors and Government associates arise almost weekly”.
He argued that the real corruption crisis is the absence, weakness or deliberate dismantling of institutions in which the country can have confidence to determine which allegations are true and which are false.
“President (Irfaan) Ali’s record hardly inspires confidence on that score: repeal of the State Assets Recovery Act, removing a specialised mechanism for tracing, restraining and recovering State assets believed unlawfully acquired; abolition of the Personal Property Tax, avoiding disclosure; continued support for a Commissioner of Information whose performance has repeatedly attracted serious criticism, while the responsible Minister has failed to ensure that the Commissioner’s reports are laid before the National Assembly as required by law; failure to modernise the Integrity Commission Act and strengthen the asset-declaration regime; and an apparent unwillingness to insist on credible explanations and consequences when ministers are associated with egregious conduct”, Ram contended.
He added that the difficulty is compounded because serious questions and allegations have also concerned the President himself over the years in relation to aspects of his earlier academic history, the Pradoville 2 charges arising from his tenure as Housing Minister which were dropped without trial, and more recent allegations concerning his farm.
“Allegations have also involved persons close to him and members of his family, including his non-resident brother. And yes, an allegation is not proof. Nor is family relationship or sudden display of wealth necessarily evidence of wrongdoing. But presidential denial is not independent investigation either”, he said.
These are warning signs of the Resource Curse, Ram posited. “…unprecedented revenues and borrowing; unprecedented spending; weakened scrutiny; discretionary power; institutions unable or unwilling to keep pace; accountability systematically reduced to form rather than substance; institutional weaknesses exploited for corrupt purposes.
“The near-40% share announced by the Exxon President and repeated – ineptly – by the Guyana President is not guaranteed. Oil prices can fall, recoverable costs can rise and production will eventually decline. More fundamentally, Guyana has the petroleum but not the institutions to match it. Nearly a decade after a Petroleum Commission was proposed, the country still depends heavily on the oil companies for technical direction, project execution and even basic information about a sector the State is supposed to regulate. Critical responsibilities remain concentrated in a Ministry of Natural Resources operating with a team unequal to the technical, commercial and regulatory demands of a world-class petroleum province”, he lamented.
Guyana therefore risks emerging from the boom with lower revenues but the same debt, spending habits and expectations – and with a State still dependent on the very companies it should be independently regulating, a danger, he said, the President and Vice President refuse to confront.
He added that Ali’s failure to build the institutions capable of managing, regulating and accounting for this wealth while revenues are abundant risks squandering a unique opportunity.
“That would be a tragedy of historical and generational proportions – one that will define his presidency more enduringly than all his other shortcomings”, Ram asserted.
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