Dear Editor,
I followed the reportage on Friday’s budget debate with a mixture of amusement and profound exhaustion. While the rest of us were waiting to hear how the 2026 Budget might alleviate the price of a gallon of oil or the cost of electricity, we were instead treated to the Leader of the Opposition, Azruddin Mohamed, conducting a public audit of his past political donations.
It is a sad day for our democracy when the hallowed halls of Parliament are used as a pawn shop to trade “receipts” for political leverage. Mr. Mohamed’s grand revelation that he “bankrolled” the PPP is not the “gotcha” moment he clearly thinks it is. Rather, it is a glaring admission of the very political immaturity that keeps this country stagnant.
We are currently debating the appropriation of billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money. This is the time for sophisticated analysis of gold sector reporting and foreign currency leakages—topics Mr. Mohamed touched on, but immediately buried under a mountain of personal grievances regarding his Lamborghini. It is hard to take a lecture on “banking system leaks” seriously from a man currently being chased by the U.S. Treasury for allegedly “leaking” 10,000 kilograms of gold past the tax man.
Furthermore, if Mr. Mohamed’s defence for his current legal troubles is that the President should have “assisted” him with a GRA invoice, he has fundamentally misunderstood the job description of a Head of State—and his own role as a legislator. We do not elect leaders to be high-priced fixers for luxury car imports; we elect them to uphold the laws that apply to everyone, regardless of how much “financing” they provided during the opposition years.
Mr. Mohamed’s outburst has done one thing: it has proven that our political financing laws aren’t just “missing”—they are a black hole. If he truly wants to serve the people, he should spend less time talking about whose campaign he funded and more time explaining why he thinks a billionaire’s tax bill is a matter of national debate while the average Guyanese worker is still counting their cents at the supermarket checkout.
The 2026 Budget deserves a serious opposition, not a disgruntled investor looking for a refund.