Dear Editor,
Throughout the past five centuries, a discernible pattern of economic decline has beset nations that once stood at the zenith of global power. After a careful review of the 2025 and 2026 National Budgets, and having listened attentively to President Irfaan Ali’s address at the February 2026 Energy Conference, it is increasingly difficult to ignore the evidence that Guyana is replicating, stage by stage and decision by decision, the very fiscal missteps that precipitated the fall of these historical powers. One is left with the disquieting impression that our policymakers, despite their education, have failed to absorb the stark lessons of world history.
Historical precedents we cannot ignore
Spain in 1590 stood as the wealthiest nation on Earth, controlling half the world’s gold and silver. Yet, Spain became little more than a conduit; wealth passed through it, but insufficient resources were retained to develop local industry. Its private sector was comparatively underdeveloped, dwarfed by its French and Italian counterparts who manufactured the goods Spain imported to satisfy its consumption. Within 80 years of its apex, Spain was bankrupt, relegated to a second-rate power from which it never fully recovered.
Great Britain in 1914 governed the largest empire in history. However, by this point, Britain was no longer building, innovating, or manufacturing with sufficient vigour. Complacency had set in, and the empire became dependent on its colonies to sustain its comforts. Within 40 years, the British Empire had collapsed to such an extent that today, one of its former colonies, India, possesses a more robust, faster-growing, and larger economy.
The Soviet Union in 1991 was a superpower. It ceased to exist in a mere 900 days, not through military defeat, but from economic implosion. The fundamental lack of fiscal discipline—the principle of not spending more than one earns—proved fatal. The state was left with a bureaucracy adept only at serving the leadership, while producing nothing of tangible value for the economy.
Guyana’s troubling trajectory
These examples should serve as a profound warning for every Guyanese citizen, for our nation appears to be on a parallel course despite all the gloss and glamour that the PPP and President Irfaan Ali want to project. The common thread is unsustainable expenditure. Since 1985, Guyana has achieved a budget surplus in only four years: 1994, 2006, 2010, and 2011. For the remaining four decades, the government has consistently spent beyond its means, operating on a deficit and necessitating ever-increasing borrowing. The mathematics suggests we are on a trajectory to squander this historic oil wealth.
This is why citizens must now more rigorously interrogate the actions of this administration with this wild and wasteful $1.5 trillion 2026 Budget. What we are offered in return appears to be a strategy of obfuscation, serving to reward a select circle of contractors while the leadership’s priorities remain detached from the populace’s needs.
Concerning priorities
It is a stark illustration of misplaced priorities that the budget for State House’s Phagwah “fete” and festivities under President Irfaan Ali reportedly exceeds the allocation for maintaining the Union Village on the Corentyne community grounds. Thanks to the Leader of the Opposition, this nation can observe how a few dollars can bring such great happiness to so many in Union Village if only the Minister of Sports can do some work for once on these village grounds in the Corentyne. This is a metaphor for a broader, more troubling pattern of resource allocation.
The economic consequences will be felt first and most acutely by ordinary citizens—those earning less than $200,000 monthly. Their reality is voiced in the public sphere, notably in the Cost of Living column of the Stabroek News, yet one must question if the ruling politicians and their associates are truly listening.
Beneath the government’s optimistic pronouncements, the economic foundations are showing signs of strain. We are witnessing a profound misallocation of resources. For instance, $50 million is reportedly allocated for legal fees in the Mohamed case, while minimal funding is available for basic community maintenance, such as weeding public grounds, supporting local libraries, or providing teachers with a living wage. Consequently, educators are compelled to seek supplementary income, waking hours early to prepare snacks for sale in their classroom, simply to survive in this so-called “oil-rich” economy. This is not merely an anecdote; it is an indicator of systemic failure at a central level.
Declining productivity and emigration
This environment fosters a sense of disenfranchisement and a decline in productivity. When a populace sees no viable path to improve their circumstances under an administration perceived as exercising excessive control with their “control freakism”, the motivation to exert effort diminishes. The result, as evidenced over the last 40 years, is a worrying trend of declining productivity, a situation arguably more acute now than during the foreign currency shortages of the Burnham era. (Though foreign currency scarcity remains an issue, as any visit to the banks will confirm.)
The most capable and ambitious citizens continue to vote with their feet. The daily queues outside the U.S. Embassy, often numbering in the hundreds, many clutching the sealed envelopes of families emigrating permanently, are a tangible measure of this disillusionment.
Alarming fiscal indicators
More alarming is the fiscal data. By the end of 2025, the debt-to-non-oil GDP ratio stood at approximately 70 percent, a dramatic increase from 35 percent in 2019. We are rapidly approaching the point where our national debt will eclipse the size of our non-oil economy—the true, long-term foundation of our prosperity, as the oil sector is a finite, flow-through and enclave industry. This trajectory threatens to return us to the dire economic conditions of the past. The oil will flow, and it will eventually leave. Unless we urgently and substantively develop the non-oil economy—agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, and housing—we are building on an unstable foundation.
Furthermore, the economy is witnessing an unchecked influx of foreign investors, primarily from Trinidad and China, whose objective appears to be maximizing foreign currency extraction from Guyana. When the current oil boom subsides and it will, they will depart, potentially leaving economic destruction in their rearview mirror, for those who cannot leave—the Guyanese poor.
If we persist with consecutive budget deficits, our nation’s potential advantages will inevitably become disadvantages. This trajectory appears driven by a single-minded focus among the political elite on personal enrichment. They may operate under the assumption that their power is permanent, yet their authority is contingent on a strong Guyana. Through actions that prioritise self-interest over national development, they are weakening the state they purport to lead.
This is not a call for theatrics or symbolism. It is a wake-up call to President Irfaan Ali. The moment demands convening the nation’s best minds to make the difficult but necessary decisions to build a resilient and sensible non-oil economy and you cannot fix this with that cabinet. Failure to do so will result in the Guyanese people paying the price for this administration’s profound mismanagement of the economy.