Dear Editor,
THE criticisms advanced in the Monday, June 8, 2026 edition of the Kaieteur News are not persuasive. The Guyana Development Bank is not conceived as a political institution; it is a financial institution with a development mandate. That distinction is fundamental. A development bank should be governed on the basis of competence, fiduciary judgment and relevant sectoral expertise.
It is, therefore, entirely appropriate that its Board of Directors comprises professionals drawn from banking, finance, economics, law, agriculture, technology and other relevant disciplines necessary to guide a modern development finance institution.
On that basis, there is no compelling case to embed civil society or Opposition representation at Board level. Experience across other institutions has shown that such arrangements can introduce unnecessary disruption and politicisation, with adverse consequences for institutional credibility and effectiveness. Avoiding that outcome is prudent institutional design. Importantly, the absence of such representation at board level does not in any way diminish oversight or public scrutiny; it simply preserves the governance integrity of the bank while leaving accountability to operate through the appropriate constitutional and statutory channels.
The claim that the bank will operate without oversight from the Opposition, transparency bodies or civil society is equally without merit. Oversight already exists through the National Assembly, to which the bank’s annual report and audited financial statements must be tabled. That alone creates a formal mechanism for parliamentary scrutiny, including by the Opposition. Beyond that, the bank’s operations and finances will be subject to public examination, given that audited accounts and reporting obligations place its performance squarely in the public domain. In other words, the suggestion that the institution will somehow function in darkness is simply false. Its governance, finances and performance will be open to scrutiny by Parliament, the media, civil society and the wider public.
As for the handwringing over bribery, kickbacks and corruption, that criticism ignores a basic principle of legislative drafting: An Act does not need to redundantly restate legal prohibitions that are already covered under other applicable laws. Guyana’s legal framework already provides for offences relating to fraud, bribery, corruption, misconduct in public office, financial misappropriation and related wrongdoing. The absence of repetitive wording in this Bill does not create a legal vacuum. It simply means that the legislation is not cluttered with provisions that are already addressed elsewhere in the statute book. To argue otherwise is either a misunderstanding of how laws are drafted or a deliberate attempt to manufacture alarm.
The criticism about vagueness in relation to eligibility criteria is also misplaced. The Bill is intentionally structured to allow the bank sufficient flexibility to innovate and evolve in its financing products over time. That is a strength, not a weakness. Development finance is not static. Products, risk tools, target sectors and eligibility rules must adapt to economic realities, policy priorities and the needs of borrowers. It would be poor institutional design to attempt to hard-code every operational detail into primary legislation.
That is precisely why the credit manual, operational manual and other internal instruments exist—to deal comprehensively and in much greater depth with eligibility criteria, risk assessment, approval thresholds, monitoring and recovery processes. The Act establishes the framework; the operating instruments provide the detail. That is standard, sensible institutional architecture.
Taken together, the objections raised in the article do not withstand serious scrutiny. They confuse politics with governance, ignore existing mechanisms of parliamentary and public oversight, misrepresent basic principles of legislative drafting, and attack flexibility in institutional design as though it were a flaw. It is not. If anything, the criticisms lack merit, substance and constructive value. A development bank should be judged by the strength of its framework, the integrity of its governance, the quality of its operational rules and, ultimately, its developmental impact.