Dear Editor,
In a nation proudly heralded as a rising economic powerhouse and a global voice for environmental stewardship, the sight of skeletal horses and donkeys collapsing under impossible loads exposes a jarring moral contradiction. Amid our progress, a cruel vestige of the colonial era still stalks our roads—the whip. This is not tradition. It is torture.
Daily across towns and villages, animals—starved, beaten, and broken—are forced to haul refuse, construction materials, or market goods, often under the full blaze of the tropical sun. The Animal Welfare Act of 2021 was enacted to prevent such cruelty, yet it languishes in neglect. When police officers must physically rescue dying animals from the roadside, it signals not a working system, but a moral and administrative failure. Our silence as a society has become complicity. To continue justifying this barbarity under the guise of livelihood is to ignore the truth that alternatives exist—and that compassion is progress.
Guyana cannot stride confidently into a prosperous, modern future while turning a blind eye to such suffering. Authorities must act decisively. The Ministries of Home Affairs, Agriculture, and Local Government should jointly design and enforce a tiered phase-out plan for the commercial and transport use of horse and donkey carts within urban and populated areas. Strictly limited agricultural exemptions, governed by licensing and mandatory veterinary oversight, could accommodate isolated rural needs. The Ministry of Local Government should also be mandated and staffed with a special unit equipped to handle the removal of carcasses from roadways and surrounding environment. It’s utterly disgusting to allow these to simply rot away.
To ensure fairness, Government should establish a “Just Transition Fund” for affected cart operators and animal owners. This fund could provide microgrants and subsidies for small motorized transport, encourage electric tricycles through duty-free concessions, and offer retraining programmes in animal-friendly livelihoods. Enforcement, however, must underpin it all. Municipal and regional authorities should be mandated to implement community education drives, visible inspection patrols, and mandatory registration for working animals, with penalties for cruelty swiftly imposed.
Our humanity is tested not by how fast we develop, but by how we exercise our sensitivity when treating those without a voice. Let this be the generation that laid down the whip and chose mercy instead. The time for excuses has passed—enforce the Act, uphold the law, and protect the voiceless