Dear Editor,
In 1986 when President Desmond Hoyte allowed the establishment of Stabroek News (SN), Guyanese, received from SN a presentation on what was right or wrong in our Cooperative Republic. As a result, SN for the last 40 years, has been a shining light and a solid bridge that brought into focus, without fear or favour, all the different political, educational, cultural, social, and economic permutations, as well as cost-of-living stories (https://www.stabroeknews.com/2025/06/16/news/guyana/how-the-cost-of-living-part-132/[1]) in our evolving Guyana. Thanks to the late Mr. David de Caires, his family, and SN staff for providing a public space for different points of view.
It is therefore very troubling that the current government, which denied a radio licence to SN, and which passed the first ever trillion-dollar budget in Guyana’s history, could not include the eighty million dollars to clear a debt owed to SN. This mistake cannot be dismissed as an oversight, for the money required to pay this debt of eighty million dollars from a trillion-dollar budget is equivalent to a tear-drop in the Demerara River. Time to get the job done Government of Guyana: pay the debt, with interest too; issue the radio licence; and free the Guyanese people of this embarrassment.
Meanwhile, and on a personal note, I would like to place on record my sincere appreciation and thanks to SN for allowing me to document my assessments on a number of matters; and also to thank SN for publishing my responses to untruthful claims made in the Mirror Newspapers, where the Management of the Mirror Newspaper refused to publish my replies to a set of misleading articles. For example, in submitting a reply to the Editor of the Mirror Newspaper in relation to a lead story published in the Mirror on July 18, 1993, I received a signed letter from the Editor dated July 23, 1993 in which I was told my letter would not be printed. In fact, the Editor wrote, “… I have given it (my letter) much thought but cannot find any necessity to print it.” I therefore sent my letter to SN and on August 8, 1993, my letter was published as an article in SN. Thank you, Stabroek News for being the freedom space and balanced environment that Guyana cannot afford to lose.
While press freedom is guaranteed on paper in Guyana, and Guyana in 2025 was ranked in the 73rd press freedom spot (2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index), it is clear that if SN is closed, Guyanese will lose an essential institution that brings in a timely manner important information to the Guyanese public. It is therefore contended that Guyanese must step up and save SN; for to lose this part of the free press will be harmful to our fledgling democracy. And so in the words of Billy Pilgrim, “Can we do it?”. Guyanese reply: ‘Yes, We Can’.