Dear Editor,
In October 2024, President Irfaan Ali stood before the nation and made a definitive, life-altering promise to the Guyanese people. Through the primary state-owned news outlet, the Department of Public Information, which is controlled by Minister Kwame McCoy, he declared that electricity costs would be “slashed by 50 per cent by the end of 2025.” He painted a picture of relief, stating this measure would “put more money in the pockets of hardworking Guyanese,” representing a $50 billion injection into household budgets. The article can be found here: https://shorturl.at/IbBQE[1] (source)
Today, as the promised deadline passes, that pledge lies in tatters. Not only has the 50% reduction failed to materialize, but the President has moved on to new announcements, treating the Guyanese people as fools with short memories. But we do remember. This failure is not a simple oversight; it is a profound betrayal of trust that exposes a pattern of overpromising and underdelivering.
What makes this failure so galling is the President’s own admission. In that same 2024 address, he detailed the “profound dysfunction” at GPL—the “insufficient inventory,” “insufficient investment,” and “significant system disturbances.” This is the most damning evidence of the failures of the PPP/C in office. The PPP/C has been in government for 28 of the last 33 years. Who, then, is responsible for this decades-long decay that President Ali now laments? His speech was not a plan; it was an inadvertent confession of his own party’s historic neglect of our energy sector.
The entire promise was built on the shaky foundation of the Wales Gas-to-Energy project, already notorious for delays and cost overruns even then. Today this $440 Billion Guyana dollar project is expected to suck another $200 Billion Guyana dollars from the coffers before it can come anywhere close to completion. That is more than $600 Billion Guyana dollars. That is money that can build 110,000 low income houses; enough to give each and every family in this nation a free home. I want the ordinary PPP supporters to understand what they are giving up following these corrupt leaders in the PPP blindly.
Rather than offer transparency, the administration used its future potential as a present-day political tool. We were sold a miracle cure with a specific deadline in the future. Now, with no medicine in hand, we are offered only more presentations and distractions—Main Street lights over home blackouts, publicity gimmicks over performance, pictures with Ministers in Christmas wear to distract the poor from their own starvation.
The result is what we suffer daily: the same high bills, the same unreliable service, and growing personal stress and frustration as the Christmas chicken spoils. The government’s recent investments, while needed, are not for a revolutionary price cut but are basic, costly repairs to a system that broke under the PPP. This has nothing to do with the PNC or APNU. It broke under the PPP and we are paying this Cabinet a collective $1.2 Billion Guyana dollars a year in official salaries and benefits to fix it and that does not include the bribe and corruption kickbacks. It is a cruel cycle: promise bonanzas, harvest goodwill, fail to deliver, and then repeat the same snake oil mantra on a different day to a crowd who clearly seem not to get the fact that their PPP leaders are conning them every time.
This is not leadership. It is political trickery. It identifies the people’s pain not to heal it, but to exploit it for momentary personal gains for these PPP leaders along with their friends and family. A leader’s word must be his bond; but when it becomes a tool for deception, everything he says thereafter rings hollow.
The case of the 50% electricity reduction is a perfect symbol of this government’s modus operandi. It reveals that the real beneficiaries of grand announcements are never the average Guyanese family, but a network of contractors and PPP insiders. Our highways may be built, but they crumble, ensuring the same players are paid twice what it cost to do it properly the first time around. Our hopes are raised, only to be dashed, ensuring we are kept distracted and dependent.
Guyana deserves better than this cycle of failure and false promises from the PPP/C. We need accountable governance, credible plans, and leaders who see public service as a duty, not a con game. It is time for fresh, competent leadership focused on the people’s welfare, not the perpetuation of a failed political brand.
There is a reason why Mr. Azruddin Mohamed is so relevant today. We must ensure he does not suffer the same faith as Mr. Crum-Ewing since the PPP are desperate and when they are desperate, they take desperate measures.