Dear Editor,
The recent attempt by Mr. Julian Williams, CPA in the letter column to contextualise the meteoric rise of a government “empire” as possibly mere “institutional financing” ignores the basic underwriting standards that apply to every ordinary Guyanese citizen.
Let’s set the record straight: Banks are not charities, and leverage is not magic.
The writer argues that assets aren’t built from salaries but through debt. This is a half-truth masquerading as wisdom. No bank in Guyana or abroad provides 100% financing for commercial “new builds” or luxury acquisitions—especially for a borrower whose primary income is a government salary.
• The reality: Institutional lenders require “seed money” or equity, typically 20% to 40% of the project cost.
• The question: On a minister’s salary, where does the “seed money” for a multi-million dollar empire come from? If you are building a $100M complex, you need $30M in cash upfront. A salary doesn’t bridge that gap; it doesn’t even cover the interest.
To secure “institutional financing,” a borrower must pass the Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR). Banks lend based on your ability to repay.
• For a private citizen, your salary dictates your borrowing power.
• For a developer, your existing assets serve as collateral.
If the Ministers did not have this “empire” five years ago, what collateral was used to trigger this sudden avalanche of bank confidence? Banks do not gamble on “new builds” without proven LTV (Loan-to-Value) or (Loan-to-Income) ratios or massive personal guarantees backed by liquid wealth.
The writer focuses on real estate because it’s easier to hide behind “mortgages.” He conveniently ignores the fleet of high-end, luxury vehicles.
• The reality: High-end vehicles are depreciating assets. They are rarely “financed” through the sophisticated institutional structures the writer describes. They are cash-heavy purchases. In the world of Anti-Money Laundering (AML), a sudden fleet of luxury cars is a “Red Flag,” not a “Standard Financial Practice.”
A call for institutional accountability: The mandate to act
Public discourse benefits from clarity, but democracy depends on accountability. The physical assets in question are not hidden; they are in full view of the public. This is no longer a matter of “online commentary”—it is a matter for the state’s investigative apparatus.
• The Integrity Commission: Under the Integrity Commission Act, you are duty-bound to verify the accuracy of declarations. If a declarant’s lifestyle and assets are “manifestly disproportionate” to their known income, the Act provides the power to investigate and prosecute.
• The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU): As Politically Exposed Persons (PEP), these officials are subject to enhanced due diligence. The FIU must track the “Source of Wealth” and “Source of Funds.” If millions are flowing into new builds without a clear paper trail of prior wealth, the FIU’s mandate is to flag this as suspicious.
• Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU): Your domain is the “Proceeds of Crime.” When wealth is accumulated in five years that would take a successful entrepreneur five lifetimes, the burden of proof must shift.
Failure to act is a signal of complicity. When oversight bodies remain silent in the face of glaring financial discrepancies, they send a message that the law is a spiderweb: it catches the small flies but lets the big ones break through.
We don’t need a lecture on how loans work; we need an explanation of how public servants outpaced the wealth of the country’s top entrepreneurs while on a fixed government payroll.
The math doesn’t lie, even when men do.