President Ali's caution about tempering expectations

President Ali’s caution about tempering expectations

Dec 01, 2025 Letters

Dear Editor,

In recent remarks reported by the Department of Public Information (DPI), President Irfaan Ali urged Guyanese to “temper expectations” even as he described the country’s future as “glorious.” For many families, however, expectations have already been tempered, not by cautionary leadership, but by the daily reality of a rising cost of living, stagnant wages, and declining purchasing power. Guyanese do not need to be told to moderate their optimism; the economy has already done that for them.

The President is right that the energy sector is price-sensitive, cost-sensitive and technology-sensitive. But this admission carries implications far beyond oil and gas. It means that Guyana’s success depends on competent long-term planning, credible data, and a well-prepared workforce.

Yet this is precisely where the Government continues to fall short. Guyana still awaits the full results of the G$2B 2022 Population and Housing Census—data essential for planning labour development, housing policy, education, and national training investments. A country cannot talk about “efficiency” and “technology-readiness” while withholding the very demographic and economic data needed to guide those decisions.

The President also admitted publicly what businesses have been saying for years: the country faces a severe shortage of human capital. This crisis cannot be fixed by scattered online programmes or politically timed education announcements. The Staffordshire University scandal, which exposed deep weaknesses in oversight, accreditation, and due diligence within the GOAL scholarship system, shows that the Government’s training initiatives remain vulnerable to misalignment and poor-quality control. Coursera, like GOAL before it, is being promoted without a clear national skills framework or a pathway that connects courses to jobs, accreditation, or wage mobility.

These shortcomings matter because, as the President himself said, workforce immaturity and inefficiency can undermine national competitiveness. If that is true, then Guyana urgently needs more than slogans. It needs a coherent national human-capital strategy, not a collection of disconnected training opportunities; a properly resourced technical system, not a patchwork of unassessed programmes; and reliable data, not withheld census reports.

At the same time, as the President cautions against being “swept away by optimism,” he must grapple with the economic pressures families face right now. Recent reporting from Belle West reveals that many households cannot afford basic items such as fresh vegetables, that workers are surviving on “one and two days” of employment a week, and that public assistance remains slow and unreliable. When the Government tells citizens to “look beyond” immediate relief, it risks appearing disconnected from the lived reality of thousands who are not swept away by optimism, they are swept under by expenses.

Tempered expectations must not become tempered responsibility. Leadership requires confronting weaknesses, not glossing over them; delivering relief now, not deferring it to Christmas; and grounding policy in real data and real planning. Guyana’s future may indeed hold promise, but families need relief today, and the nation urgently needs a transparent, credible plan for building the workforce and economy of tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Sherod A. Duncan, M.P.

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