Merry Christmas!

Dec 25, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – Ah, Christmas—the season of goodwill, good cheer, and, let’s not forget, good riddance! It’s that magical time when even the most hardened scoundrel can decorate a tree, stuff a chicken, and pretend they aren’t the Grinch in human form. This year, in the spirit of enduring inclusivity, I’ve decided to extend my Christmas wishes to society’s miscreants, crooks, and ne’er-do-wells. Because if Santa can tolerate naughty kids, surely, I can tolerate, well… this lot.

First, a tinsel-wrapped “Merry Christmas” to those who promised to renegotiate the lopsided oil deal, only to treat that pledge like a discarded campaign flyer.  You’ve managed to forget “renegotiation” while the oil keeps flowing and the balance sheet stays suspiciously lopsided. You seem to be spurn ring-fencing and world-class spill protections. Here’s hoping Santa brings you a spine and a calendar. May the New Year grant you either the courage to finally confront the oil giants or a conscience clear enough to explain to a nation why the “greatest deal in history” for Guyana still seems to have someone else’s name on the gift tag.

A blanket of disdain is wishes for the consortium of the corrupt—those who see the public purse as a personal trough. From the grand architect of the inflated contract to the petty clerk skimming a “processing fee,” you are united in a silent, parasitic fellowship, converting the people’s monies into illicit private mansions and luxury vehicles. Your theft drains the lifeblood from schools, hospitals, and roads. But as the New Year approaches, may a collective and unrelenting karma find you. May the walls of your deceitful schemes crumble under the weight of their own greed. Your greatest gift in 2026 should be the cold, clarifying clang of a cell door closing, finally ending your festive season of plunder.

To the newly-minted billionaires and overnight oligarchs emerging from the oil fog: Season’s Greetings! Your sudden empires, built on connections rather than competence, are a true Christmas miracle. May the New Year bring you a sudden interest in paying taxes and a fear of the coming anti-corruption commission.

A very special seasonal greeting to the “Lords of Lethargy”, the “Sultans of Stagnation”, and the undisputed champions of the public’s purgatory—those masters of the public bureaucracy who have elevated delay and obstruction to a high art. You, who guard your rubber stamps like holy scepters and treat each request, permit, or application as a personal imposition to be savored, then stalled. Your kingdom is the queue, your power drawn from the frustrated sigh of the citizen held hostage by “process.”

But a new dawn threatens your dreary domain. The coming tide of e-governance—digital portals, transparent tracking, and automated approvals—spells doom for your empire of inefficiency. So, this Christmas, I offer a heartfelt wish: may the New Year’s gift of this new technology be swift and merciless. May it render your “file under review” obsolete, your “come back tomorrow” powerless, and your entire business of wasting people’s time exactly what it should be—a bankrupt, forgotten relic. Here’s to seeing your reign of red tape replaced by the click of a button and the blessed sound of progress, finally moving at the speed of public need.

A special yuletide shout-out to the contractors of catastrophe, who’ve turned the infrastructure projects into quick-sand engineering. Nothing says “holiday spirit” like a road that is behind schedule, a pump station unfinished and a major project built in the swamp. May your New Year’s resolution be to use more cement and less sawdust.

To the confidence tricksters and land hustlers preying on a population dizzy with displacement and skyrocketing rents: Merry Christmas, you heartless opportunists! Your “guaranteed” house lots in non-existent schemes and your predatory leases have turned the Guyanese Dream into a nightmare. May the New Year bring you a court summons and your victims a rightful title.

Let’s not forget the racial arsonists and unsavoury social media trolls on all sides, who’ve worked overtime this year to turn every policy debate into a sectarian war. Your gift of division is the lump of coal in every stocking. May the ghost of national unity visit you this Christmas and remind you that this country belongs to all of us, even if you spend all day pretending it doesn’t.

Finally, to the all the rogues, rascals, and reprobates who’ve made this year in Guyana a spectacle of dizzying wealth, brazen corruption, and breath-taking inequality, I wish you a reflective holiday. And, in the immortal words of Kevin McCallister: “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!”

(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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• Grinch, lopsided oil deal, Merry Christmas, Peeping Tom, Santa

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