Huge losses from failed projects started by Jagdeo

Oct 29, 2025 Letters

Dear Editor,

Every project initiated or controlled by Bharat Jagdeo -the self-anointed expert on Oil and Gas – has faced controversy ranging from delays, cost overruns to colossal failure.

Two years overdue (and he was absent from the President’s 5:00 am meeting for contract reporting) and incurring huge rising costs – the latest being an additional US$M100 to strengthen poor soil conditions so pipelines can be laid – lays bare the result of not performing any feasibility studies. To make matters worse, this ambitious project reflects the sheer hubris of its creator has the hallmarks of all previous projects emanating from the chief honcho and de facto President, besides having the same players in Ashni Singh and Mike Brassington, and with newcomer Brigadier Mark Phillips, the retired soldier.

The sheer truculence in the decision-making process to spend peoples’ money defies all judgment and seemingly takes place faster than an episode of The Big Bang Theory. After losing some US$200 million in the Skeldon Sugar Factory, over US $100 million in the Amalia Falls Hydro Project, around US $100 million in the Surendra Specialty Hospital and a litany of impetuous sojourns like one laptop per family, it seems that Guyana is witnessing an antithesis of The Midas Touch, now operating in reverse mode.

Much like the Marriot Hotel, the much touted ‘jobs for Guyanese’ will witness Guyanese being employed, as welders, janitors, waitresses, meal providers and drivers with a selected few embracing any management portfolio. This project will be operated and maintained by foreign expertise further solidifying the re-colonization caveat.

This is by far the largest expenditure of taxpayers’ money yet neither public debate nor parliamentary approval was ever pursued. This deliberate concealment of cost – breakdown, overruns and loan interests – are of national interest, not a one-man Lumumba Russian University graduate. The prediction that electricity costs would be cut in half is most comical as electricity rates have doubled since the project was conceived – a rather alien word for the man who aspired for a third-term President.

Over 100 years ago Spanish philosopher, Santayana, (1853-1962) declared: Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. These immortal words must form the cornerstone of all decisions for any country; sadly, the proliferation of failed projects is the result of not heeding these immortal words. Today, Guyana faces yet another doomsday venture in the Gas-to-Energy Project.

Regards,
Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine

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failed projects, Jagdeo, Letters, losses, Oil and Gas

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