The mirage of citizen investment

Apr 13, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News- The latest song and dance from the corridors of political power in Guyana comes wrapped in the seductive language of inclusivity and opportunity. The Vice President, not known for idle chatter unless it serves a purpose, let slip the idea at a press conference: citizens may be allowed to invest in government-created financial instruments, promising a guaranteed rate of return higher than traditional bank deposits.

This was later echoed by the President himself, who painted it as a revolutionary turn in wealth generation—a plan to let the people co-invest in the nation’s gas and fertilizer projects.  Like manna from heaven, they offer you a stake in the future. But I say today and I forewarn: beware when the government comes bearing gifts, it’s rarely for your benefit.

For the attentive citizen, I believe there is something rotten in the promise. Weeks before this noble-sounding proposal, an advertisement quietly appeared in the newspapers for a second gas-to-energy project, stating plainly that this would be a private sector undertaking.

That notice, like so many things in Guyana’s politics, slipped under the radar—certainly beneath the scrutiny of an Opposition apparently too distracted or too docile to raise the obvious question: If these gas projects are the golden goose, able to pay for themselves and rain down riches, why is the State retreating to make room for the private sector? Why surrender something lucrative if not to curry favour or make room at the table for friends with fat wallets and political IOUs?

The answer lies buried not in policy documents or declarations but in the habitual cunning of governments drunk on power and impunity. This talk of “citizen investment” is not, in all likelihood, a bold democratization of capital, but the construction of a democratic mirage. Behind the billboard of citizen empowerment, there waits the familiar beast of oligarchy, now dressed in the Sunday best of public participation.

The question that must be asked—without apology or hesitation—is where exactly the small man is expected to find the money to invest in these grandiose undertakings. Shall he mortgage his modest home, pawn his future cash grants, or perhaps liquidate the dream of sending his child to university just so he may own a sliver of a gas project run by men in air-conditioned boardrooms?  Or is he being asked to forego future cash grants in order to help finance these projects?

And are we to believe that a financial model will be constructed which truly levels the playing field, instead of simply raising the gates for a new class of economic patricians?

This is not public investment. It is public illusion. What will be offered, I believe, if anything at all, will likely be the crumbs—the five or ten percent of shares dressed up as empowerment, while the lion’s share is parceled out to the rich and powerful. The nation’s wealth is at stake, and we must guard against it being hawked under the banner of opportunity.

The more principled question is this: If the projects are indeed so profitable, why is the State not leading the charge as the principal investor, holding the assets in trust for its citizens, and distributing returns as direct public benefits? Why invite co-investment at all, unless it is to give the public the illusion of participation while quietly securing control for the few? What’s the endgame? A handful of politically-connected investors reaping massive profits while the ordinary citizen gets the illusion of ownership and the reality of risk?

There is a reason, after all, that so many of the world’s truly public goods—electricity, roads, water—are managed by the State. Not because governments are paragons of efficiency, but because such public goods are not usually profitable and thus the State must carry the loss. This is why we must object to attempts to privatize profit while socializing the risk – the oldest grift in capitalism’s long con.

We are being sold a future of opportunity- even for Granny’s two-cents’ pension. But we have memories, and memory is a stubborn thing. We remember the insurance debacle that was CLICO, where the country lost millions. We recall the controversial financial model of Berbice Bridge that effectively handed control to a select few. And then there was the Marriott Hotel, with its still secret syndicated investors who had the first lien on funds should the hotel go belly-up.

Now, with the nation’s gas fields poised to be the next big thing, we are told that citizen investment is the way forward. But who writes the prospectus? Who decides the share structure? Who manages the risks? And, more importantly, who benefits when the returns begin to flow?

Let us not be pacified by the soothing language of wealth generation. Let us not be lulled into silence by the promise of co-ownership in projects whose very structure may have already locked us out. Let us, instead, demand clarity. Demand transparency. Demand that the State remain the principal steward of the nation’s wealth.

(The mirage of citizen investment)

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Guyana, Proposal, seductive language, wealth generation, wrapped

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