Dear Editor,
I read with great interest a Bloomberg Magazine’s July 29, 2026, piece on Guyana. It offered the international community a candid look at our nation’s remarkable yet deeply uneven economic trajectory. That such a prominent outlet would shine a light on our realities is welcome, and it compels us all to reflect honestly on where we stand.
There is no denying the macroeconomic numbers. Guyana’s economy has grown at an extraordinary pace, driven overwhelmingly by oil production that surpassed 900,000 barrels per day by the end of 2025 (a 35 percent increase over the previous year). Non-oil growth hovers around 14 percent, fueled largely by a construction boom directly tied to the petroleum sector. These are impressive statistics by any measure.
Yet numbers, however dazzling, do not fill bellies, roof homes, or heal the sick. The lived experience of ordinary Guyanese tells a far more troubling story, one that the government would do well to heed since the clock has started on 2030.
Consider the cost of living. Food prices rose by 8.2 percent in August 2025 alone, and the Inter-American Development Bank warns that rising food import prices could intensify inflationary pressures. With more than half of our population now struggling to meet basic needs and the poverty rate estimated at 58 percent, the hardship is not anecdotal, it is reality. I am now being told by family in Berbice that they know people who now cannot eat three square meals a day because they just cannot afford it.
The disconnect is palpable. A recent report in The Telegraph captured it vividly: in Houston, Georgetown, oil elites celebrate a gleaming future in their fancy hotels, while just minutes away in East Ruimveldt, a 72-year-old man and his daughter live in a tiny room with a leaking roof and dirt floor. His words echo what so many feel: “As far as I’m concerned, the oil money is going straight into the rich people’s pockets. I have seen none of it, just things getting much more expensive.”
And yet, basic services remain deficient. Communities across the country still lack reliable access to potable water, consistent electricity, adequate healthcare, and effective personal security with a massively dysfunctional police force. These are not new grievances; they predate 2020, but they have not improved meaningfully since. So what did Irfaan Ali spend more than $8 trillion Guyana dollars on since 2020?
The Gas-to-Energy project offers a case study in governance failures. Now running approximately two years behind schedule, costs have escalated significantly after major soil challenges emerged, challenges that, regrettably, were not identified before the project was awarded because comprehensive pre-project environmental and soil studies were not conducted. The result: a US$97 million settlement paid by the people of Guyana to the contractor to restart the project. This was an avoidable cost, and it is ordinary citizens who bear the final burden for these executive lapses.
The deeper issue, however, is one of trust. The Natural Resource Fund Act 2021 was presented as a beacon of transparency, yet public confidence remains elusive. Persistent draws for supplementary allocations mere months after the passage of the National Budget, have only deepened scepticism. The perception of elite capture, of state resources flowing to “friends, family and favourites,” as critics have characterised it, undermines whatever institutional safeguards exist.
Equally concerning is the failure to diversify. According to Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, Guyana ranks in the bottom 10 percent globally, with an export base overwhelmingly dependent on a single commodity—oil. Since 2024, over 90 percent of our exports came from oil alone. This is a textbook warning of Dutch Disease, yet meaningful investments in agriculture, agro-processing, manufacturing, or the digital economy remain conspicuously absent.
When confronted with these critiques, the government’s response often seems defensive rather than reflective. While the Attorney General Mr. Anil Nandlall, has pointed to constitutional checks and balances and the Auditor General’s operational independence, these arguments ring hollow to citizens who see little evidence of accountability in practice.
I do not write this to diminish the genuine achievements of our nation or to deny that employment opportunities have expanded. Indeed, it is true that anyone who wants a job can likely find one. But the question remains: is the salary sufficient to keep pace with the current inflation? And are working conditions such that we can take pride in our labour standards? The United States’ recent concerns regarding forced labour conditions in Guyana, resulting in higher tariffs compared to our Caribbean neighbours, should give us all pause. We owe it to our workers to pass and enforce laws that uphold dignity and fairness in the work places.
The government cannot grow the economy faster than it already has. What it can do is change how the benefits of that growth are distributed. It can build a transparent, accountable system that ensures oil wealth serves all Guyanese, not merely a connected few.
Grand speeches about people-centred development and sustainable futures ring hollow when workers, farmers, and ordinary families see little tangible benefit. The path before us is marred by inequality, corruption, and a troubling neglect of the very people whose labour builds this nation. This is the legacy of President Irfaan Ali.
Yours faithfully,
Surujdai Juglall
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