What gifts will Ashni Singh bring

Jan 23, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – What tidings does Dr. Ashni Singh bring this year? Will it be another year of lament and discontent? Or, one that makes ordinary Guyanese know what it is to feel like an oil enriched citizen?

In typical fashion, the man of numbers and past numbing narratives, isn’t unsealing his lips nor his briefcase until the appointed hour come Monday, Jan 26th. He is a cold one; all polymath, and math that doesn’t add up for needy Guyanese. Those imperishable souls left out in the frozen tundra that is today’s oil Guyana. So much oil and so many from the massed ranks of this country’s impoverished forced to go hungry, held to ransom, and left to guessing.

They tell me that Dr. Singh is a man lacking in humor, wears that like a badge of honor. Few are those who have seen him crack a smile. In private. I would be the same way, if I had to deliver the same news to hopeful patients, one after the other. Diagnosis -tough condition. Prognosis: terminally ill. His national budgets have led to that state for Guyanese, who can’t do better, despite their best, most determined efforts. It is why they look to government they elected, the leaders they heralded, for a hand to get them over the obstacles that are insurmountable on their own. Dr. Singh is one of the cornerstones in that pantheon of local self-congratulating leadership superstars. He is the man with the sack of goodies, a January Christmas Father.

What will he bring, joy to Guyanese who have known only the grim and dismal? Or, another long, dreary season of hardship and rational hopelessness? The oil is still in demand, and though the prices have taken a slide, there should still be enough for every Guyanese (and a few Venezuelans) to get their finger in the cheesecake, and have a lick.

It would be inspiring if Dr. Singh breaks his mold of old. No more of that glassy-eyed stare and those sepulchral tones, while the numbers rollout from his bone-dry mouth, and punch a hole in the tympanic membrane of his less financially blessed listeners. My hope is that this 2026 will usher in a new Ashni Singh- kinder, gentler, sweeter in that he is more considerate. Be sure to appreciate that because the man has responsibility for the national cash stash, he has to hear it from the crowd, and absorb his share of blows. It is the fate of messengers; with the president and former president both being afforded the space to retreat into the background. The budget is theirs, as much as it is his. He is just the spokesman. A presenter that induces the impossible: spellbinding boredom.

Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount was short and swift. Dr. Singh’s deluge of words and numbers from Mt. Arthur Chung will follow his previous choking paths. Long on hours, and tedious and tiring relative to incentives that compel young and old Guyanese, poor and poorer ones, to jump out of their rocking chairs, and do their best imitation of John Travolta and MC Hammer at their peak.

Tax credits are a positive start. But somebody has to say something about that minimum wage, which would have fueled a minirevolt in another country. Dr. Singh will likely have some charity to give. The problem is that Guyanese can’t take it. A constant state of hunger does that, shrinks the stomach. And if they can’t buy food, that means they can’t buy shoes. There’s oil rich on paper, and there’s Guyana’s huge, disillusioned army of oil paupers.

For sure, Dr. Singh will announce more roads and bridges. But of what utility are those, when a mother doesn’t have GY$500 to a bundle of (long beans) bora that totals 10, maybe a dozen. When one bora goes for $50, then minibus fare went from challenge to crisis. The more billions that farmers get; the more Guyanese get conned. I think that $2.1 billion has to be some kind of scheme. A political Ponzi that one is: the lucky few get paid off, the rest are left holding the snake. Guyanese are in dire need of more than a cash grant injection. The ones that are really down in the dumps and hurting need a blood transfusion. My advice to expectant citizens is simple: just don’t look to Dr. Singh for a cure for cancer. He is not that kind of doctor. Scholar, yes; but soother and healer, not a blasted chance.

(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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Ashni Singh, GHK Lall, needy Guyanese, oil

One thought on “What gifts will Ashni Singh bring”

MARTIN January 23, 2026 at 4:54 pm

Why each household doesn’t plant and reap their own bora

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