No drug business in Guyana -oh yeah

Nov 14, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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(Kaieteur News) – Some of the chemists and druggists must be crying from all the smoke that gets in their eyes.  More cocaine and ganga burned; a dreadful waste according to all sides of those businesses.  One billion Guyana dollars gone up in flames.  I would cry, too, if that was part of my career choice.

From the depths of the smoke-filled haze stepped Hon. Minister of Home Affairs, Ms. Oneidge Walrond to honor the drug bonfire, with a few choice phrases.  She should have had the good sense to be a shade more, ah, reserved.  Because there are still a few more weeks to go before the 100-day honeymoon afforded the PPP Govt. runs out, I will go light on Minister Walrond.  Plus, she is new to the Home Affairs (Police) portfolio, so the courtesies of probation apply. 

“It sends a strong signal to traffickers most of these drugs were meant for transshipment that Guyana is not the place to do drugs business.  We will seize and destroy. Guyana will not be used as a transshipment point.”  Fighting words from a new minister already in fine form.  The minister is a fast learner, has digested her lines well.  Congratulations, Hon. Minister.  For this well-programmed minister actually to insist “that Guyana is not the place to do drug business” indicates that she has her feet off the ground, and has lost touch with reality.

I kept my word: a slight touch of the fingertips on the wrist.  That GY$1 billion in incinerated drugs-taking that at face value, and that all that was earmarked for burning was really burnt-is just a drop in the Guyana’s drug bucket rackets.  In essence, merely a fraction, a small one, of the drugs that pass through this territory, and that is seized.

One billion GY$ is what is declared.  What about the rest withheld, minister, and redistributed into waiting private sector establishments?  What about the tankers of drugs, mainly hard drugs that grow deep in Columbian and other Latin American countries’ forests and mountain sides that don’t as much as reflect a blip on Guyana’s radar?

Being new to the job, Minister Walrond could be pardoned for leaving out those huge drug busts in Europe.  Hamburg, Germany and Antwerp, Belgium are two that come to mind.  And, so that everyone is singing from the same hymnbook, there is Hymn Number 4, which was that 4-ton cocaine caper in Matthews Ridge that almost got away.

I see an indictment coming on the heels of that sanction.  The point is as straight as an arrow: if it weren’t for North American and European law enforcement’s well-directed focuses and energies on the drug business in and out of Guyana, there would have been one powerful conclusion.  Guyana is not the place where the drug business has a foothold, certainly not a stranglehold.  Guyana is not the place for that kind of business, because the systems are robust and the people overseeing them are a combination of Mother Teresa and St Joan of Arc.  Sorry, I got a little carried away there.

To put this differently, Minister Walrond proclamation that “Guyana is not the place to do drug business” has its, er, limitations.  It is not what is apprehended, but what is allowed to sneak through.  Note that I assert ‘allowed to pass through.’  Just like gold smuggling, should the minister need the refresher, and wishes to bring her vice president and cabinet up to speed.  Guyanese have heard about Venezuelan drug smugglers, Brazilian drug smugglers and, of more recent vintage, Columbian drug smugglers.

Pilots, local navigators, and human mule packs.  Just like it was in the jolly old days of Sir Francis Drake around the Isthmus of Panama.  Guyana is the 21^st century’s river to riches, with one bust after another intercepted far from here.  Again, takeaway the Yanks and their Saxons, Gallic and Teutonic cousins across that Atlantic pond, and drugs and Guyana would never be mentioned in the same breath.  Keep them in the mix, and it is clear that Guyana is the place to do drug business.  It is not sound policy to disagree with ministers, especially those close to the top dogs.  But duty calls.

Finally, the drug businesspeople have benefited from a natural camouflage.  It is not the impenetrable forest canopy in the remote hinterlands.  Apologies for throwing cold water on the Indiana Jones types.  Guyana’s drug business camouflage comes compliments of Exxon.

Perish the thought!  Exxon is not in the drug business, not when it can collect all those free billions from Guyana.  The camouflage is oil.  Oil news, oil conspiracies, and oil arguments all kicked drugs off the pavement, and out of Guyanese consciousness.  The drug business is still here, probably flourishing more.  The hard truth is that its existence is minimized, deep underground its home.

(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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• business, cocaine, drug, ganga, GHK Lall, NO, smuggling

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