Sovereignty for Sale: The Republic Day Banquet and the Illusion of Partnership

Feb 26, 2026 Letters

Dear Editor,

The recent imagery emanating from State House—a tableau of fine dining and flowery adulation on the 56th Anniversary of our Republic—presents a jarring paradox that should alarm every tax-paying citizen of this nation. While President Irfaan Ali waxes lyrical about a partnership built on “trust,” the structural reality of Guyana’s relationship with ExxonMobil suggests something far more transactional, asymmetric, and, frankly, subservient. As we navigate the complexities of 2026, the chasm between the government’s scripted optimism and the empirical reality of our “oil-rich” status has become a gulf that no amount of vintage wine can bridge.

The most damning red flag in this purported partnership is the recent revelation that ExxonMobil disclosed significant growth in Guyana’s oil reserves to its global shareholders—data that was notably absent from any meaningful briefing to the Guyanese public. If a multinational corporation calculates and communicates the shifting wealth of our own seabed to Wall Street while leaving the sovereign owners of that resource in the dark, we are not witnessing a partnership; we are witnessing an information hegemony. Trust cannot exist in an environment of such deliberate data asymmetry. By presiding over a lavish welcome for Exxon’s “super structure” while they withhold the true scale of our national assets, this administration isn’t merely being polite—it is being complicit in its own marginalization.

There is a profound, almost poetic tragedy in hosting a corporate board meeting as the centerpiece of Republic Day celebrations. Republic Day is, by definition, the ultimate commemoration of self-determination and the breaking of colonial chains. Yet, the sight of the Chancellor of the Judiciary, the Commissioner of Police, and the Chief of Defence Staff lined up to break bread with corporate executives signals a dangerous blurring of State sovereignty. When a Head of State uses the national podium to assure a private entity that their investment is “safe, sound, and protected” above all other considerations, he is essentially issuing a “No-Fly Zone” against future legislative or fiscal reforms. This is not the language of a leader holding the keys to the world’s most significant energy frontier; it is the language of a supplicant ensuring the landlord doesn’t disturb the tenant.

The narrative that this subservience is a tactical “kindness” intended to lure better terms in the future is a fallacy that insults the collective intelligence of the electorate. In the theater of global extraction, kindness is not a currency—leverage is. President Ali’s “unapologetic” stance toward Exxon appears less like a sophisticated diplomatic strategy and more like a self-serving shield for a status quo that favours a small political and corporate elite. By refusing to leverage our massive resources to rebalance the infamously lopsided 2016 Production Sharing Agreement, the government chooses the comfort of corporate approval over the difficult, necessary work of securing national equity.

We are told repeatedly that the “rule of law” applies here, but that law must also encompass the right of a people to a fair and transparent share of their own heritage. As it stands, the only thing “safe and protected” in Georgetown is the profit margin of a foreign entity, while the spirit of our Republic is relegated to a footnote in a scripted dinner speech. Guyana does not need a partner that acts like an owner; it needs a leadership that remembers it represents the owners. The time has passed for exaltations of “trust” that only flow in one direction. Our resources are finite, but our dignity as a Republic should not be.

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