Dear Editor,
When Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond launched her now-infamous crackdown on tinted vehicles, she stood before the nation and told us what was meant to be a defining line in law enforcement reform:
“Don’t call me.” No favours, no phone calls to “big ones.” No exceptions for the well-connected. The era of selective enforcement, she promised, was over.
But Guyanese citizens are now left asking — did she mean a word of it?
Because for days, social media has been flooded with footage showing a government-issued pickup — a multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded vehicle — being hauled from a trench. The incident reportedly followed a night out, and according to multiple accounts, the driver was none other than Minister Walrond’s own son. The videos show laughter and levity where accountability should have been.
And what has been the official response? Silence.
Not a word from the Ministry of Home Affairs. Not a statement from the police hierarchy, which operates under her authority. Not even an acknowledgment from the Minister herself — despite journalists having put the question directly to her within the same Police Media Group she oversees.
If it were an ordinary citizen caught recklessly misusing public property, the Minister’s tint-crackdown swagger would have reappeared in full force. There would be arrests, charges, and public shaming. Instead, the institutions that exist to enforce standards seem paralyzed under proximity to power.
This is not just hypocrisy — it is a constitutional distortion. The police, reportedly instructed to step back when she appeared at the scene, raise the troubling specter of executive interference.
“When the official responsible for law and order bends those laws for personal convenience, Guyana’s democratic institutions suffer a wound far deeper than any trench.”
So yes, let’s address this anomaly — this glaring betrayal of the “One Guyana” promise. The Minister of Home Affairs cannot credibly lead a ministry dedicated to impartial justice while selectively shielding her own family. The standards she demands of the public must extend to her household.
When it comes to Family, Friends, and Favourites, it seems the Ministry of Home Affairs has one unwritten rule: silence is the policy.
Reports identify the driver as the Home Affairs Minister’s son, allegedly after leaving a nightclub. What followed was not transparency, but a wall of silence thick enough to hide a scandal.
That silence raises urgent questions of public accountability:
It is difficult to avoid the stench of double standards. The same woman who spent the past year lecturing the public about responsibility, road safety, and accountability has gone mute when those principles touch her own doorstep.
Last year, at the launching of Road Safety Month, Minister Walrond warned against “carelessness, speed and distraction” and pledged that even a single death caused by a drunk driver was “one too many.” She later stood beside a grieving mother at an event for victims of road accidents, her voice thick with empathy as she spoke of “tragedies we have the power to prevent.”
In December, she thundered about transparency, promising to bring an end to the “selective practices of the past.”
Today, those very words have returned to challenge her credibility. By allegedly interfering in the crash scene and remaining silent while the police hold their breath, she has done exactly what she accused others of doing — bending the law for convenience and privilege.
This is not merely a matter of optics. It is a question of integrity and constitutional ethics.
When the Minister responsible for law and order fails to submit herself and her family to the same standards she is mandated to apply to ordinary citizens, she undermines every police officer, every prosecutor, and every citizen who still believes in equal justice under law.
No minister can credibly lead a portfolio dedicated to “safe, transparent, and enforceable” governance while embodying the opposite.
The time for silence has passed. Minister Oneidge Walrond must go — not because of the circulation of a video, but because she has forfeited the moral authority to lead. The people’s desire is clear: Guyana deserves a Home Affairs Minister who serves the law, not one who bends it.
If she cannot uphold that principle, the honorable course is clear: Minister Oneidge Walrond must step down.