Dear Editor,
During the National Budget Debate on February 6, 2026, Ms. Priya Manickchand proudly declared, “I never fail, baby.” That display of public bravado may have sounded impressive in the National Assembly, but the reality on the ground tells a very different story.
Her own words have already contradicted her.
In November 2025, Ms. Manickchand stood at Stabroek Market Square and declared, “Let us go forward and show this country how we can co-operate in keeping Guyana clean.” She promised a system where garbage would be collected twice daily to keep the market area clean, drained, and functional for vendors and shoppers alike. Yet less than five months later, that promise has collapsed. A walk-through of the market by the Leader of the Opposition in March 2026 revealed garbage piling up, flooding throughout the market, and the familiar stench of neglect hanging in the air. The very place Ms. Manickchand promised to fix has once again been left in filth and disorder.
So much for “I never fail.”
Instead of returning to Stabroek Market to account for this breakdown, Ms. Manickchand rushed off to the Essequibo Coast to stage another publicity exercise in the typical style of the PPP leaders – always running from the problem to sell snake oil in a next geographic area. There she ceremonially handed over garbage trucks to local authorities and attempted to market this routine government function as if it were some extraordinary act of generosity, when in all civilised societies, this is what Government’s do routinely and it does not need a whole manufactured movie to show case these trucks.
Let us be clear: in a $1.5 trillion national budget, garbage trucks and basic sanitation services are not political miracles. They are basic responsibilities. These are not favours from politicians; they are services funded by taxpayers and owed to the people of Guyana. What happened with these garbage trucks was just an example of how the people got back some of their own money.
Perhaps it is necessary to remind this government of a fundamental principle: the role of the Government of Guyana is to organise and manage the country so that it serves the needs, rights, and welfare of its citizens. Essential services such as garbage collection, drainage, market rehabilitation, and public safety are not optional luxuries. They are core functions of governance.
If Ms. Manickchand wishes to test whether she has “never failed,” she should take a walk through Stabroek Market today. She will see vendors working in flooded walkways, garbage accumulating where it should have been removed, and citizens once again left to cope with more of her broken promises. During that same November 2025 visit, Ms. Manickchand told vendors, “In me you have a friend.” If abandoning them to garbage, floodwaters, and neglect within five months is what friendship looks like, then those vendors hardly need enemies.
She also told them she wanted to see them “thrive.” Yet no vendor can thrive in a marketplace surrounded by filth and stagnant water. No customer wants to wade through dark, dirty floodwater simply to buy groceries. Thus, business will suffer because Ms. Manickchand abandoned them.
She ended that speech by declaring, “This is a beginning.”
Unfortunately, it appears that the “beginning” lasted only a few months before the promises were forgotten and the people left behind. This pattern of lofty speeches followed by disappointing results is precisely why many working people in Guyana are deeply skeptical of political promises. Words are plentiful when it comes to the PPP; delivery is scarce.
In the final analysis, Ms. Manickchand’s record speaks louder than her slogans. At both the local government level and previously in education, the pattern has been the same: plenty of rhetoric, plenty of theatrics, but far too little lasting substance. The people of Guyana deserve governance, not gimmicks. It is time to pull your socks up Ms. Priya Manickchand and do some real work by monitoring and evaluating the reliability of your promises, if you want to be the Presidential Candidate to replace President Irfaan Ali. The people have seen you for who you are – someone who is prepared to play with their intelligence and they do not like it. That is not how you win votes – with a “pretty face and a bad character” as the song said.