President Ali has lost the plot on leadership of the country

Dear Editor,

Minister Priya Manickchand’s recent Facebook post on “leadership matters”^[1] led me to reflect on what I regard as an astonishing display of barefacedness. Reducing leadership to the construction of stadiums and bridges was almost laughable. Since she serves in the Cabinet that is supposed to lead this country, allow me to explain what leadership truly means.

Firstly, leadership is not management. Anyone can manage; few can lead. And by that measure, President Irfaan Ali is not leading Guyana—he is managing it, like most of his predecessors save Hugh Desmond Hoyte. What Hoyte did to repair the Guyanese society after over 20 years of Burnham’s destruction was real leadership. He set the course, he set the vision and he hired the best and he got down to work. He was not petty or childish as we are witnessing today from this Irfaan Ali-led PPP administration.

Harvard’s John P. Kotter made this distinction enduringly clear: management copes with complexity (planning, budgeting, problem-solving); leadership copes with change (setting direction, aligning people, overcoming obstacles).^[2]

Let us test this Government against six pillars of real leadership:

1. Building a unifying vision. Where is the tangible outcome of “One Guyana”? A T-shirt? A state-funded Christian concert managed by an unprincipled minister, excluding Hindus?
2. Developing strategy. Where is the written 30-year National Development Strategy? What is the action plan to lift the 50% of our citizens out of poverty?
3. Getting great people on board. After 28 years of PPP rule, why are our best talents fleeing to oil companies or abroad—not into the public sector or the Guyanese private sector? Why do 75,000 families still wait for a houselot after 28 years of the PPP in power?
4. Focusing on results. We have concussion-inducing highways and a failed traffic system of un-coordinated “roundabouts”. Where is the accountability?
5. Innovating for the future. How are we more creative in our systems than Trinidad, Suriname, or Barbados? We have already lost that competition, and we are regressing when we compare to those countries.
6. Leading yourself. Money is not personal growth, but that seems to be Ms. Priya’s benchmark. Compare our ministerial class to theirs—it is chalk and cheese, and we are far behind Trinidad, Suriname and Barbados on all yardsticks.

So yes, Minister Manickchand, leadership matters—but it does not reside in this Cabinet, nor, frankly, in the Guyanese political Opposition.

Leadership is not new buildings and bridges. Every country builds roads and bridges. The question is whether our collective lives have improved qualitatively. Have they? Certainly not!

Why are our people constantly worrying about robbery by bandits and by a business class that cheats us on quality and value for money, about reckless drivers with zero consequences when they misuse the roadways, about garbage in our streets that Minister Manickchand scores a Grade “F” on since this is within her portfolio, about failing hospitals and schools. This is not progress. It is not leadership.

President Ali has lost the plot. 2030 cannot come soon enough. We made a mistake in 2025, and now we must live with the consequences of our emotional choice.

References

1. Local leadership is key to effective service delivery – Min Manickchand tells Reg 3 RDC - Guyana Times — guyanatimesgy.com ↩
2. John P. Kotter quote: Leadership is about coping with change — www.azquotes.com ↩