The BBC programme

Mar 18, 2026 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – It is obvious how desperate the PPPC Government is to paint the brightest picture on its management of Guyana’s oil revenues. That it has been fair in its distribution of the wealth generated by the oil sector.

Increased production now the routine, with a million barrels a day closing in. A country with a tiny population, with less than a million, and a million barrels of daily production almost within the grasp, should be able to take more than sufficient care of all its citizens. The record is that the PPPC Government has not done so, and it is desperate to hide that from the world.

The government was so desperate that it objected behind the scenes to a couple of the Guyanese that the people coordinating BBC World Questions chose for panelists on its programme. The government was so desperate that it discarded shame and had a Cabinet minister on the scene of the World Questions programme. The sitting minster was so desperate to create the best impression for the PPPC Government’s oversight of the broadening Guyana oil economy that he could barely restrain himself from sharing his mouthful on the programme. A desperate PPPC Government loaded the programme with panelists who would toe the line by not offering any posture that was threatening to its deceptive narratives. Not satisfied with that sleight-of-hand, the desperate government then took the safe step of crowding the live audience with its own raucous cheerleading section. It would have completely taken over the BBC’s arrangements, but for the occasional glimpses of strength from the moderator.

Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance in Guyana, Dr. Ashni Singh knows enough about oil revenues, and is competent enough in his own right, not to need the extra help arranged for him by his desperate Cabinet comrades. It could be a sign, perhaps, of his own nervousness, his own desperation, that he needed the comfort of that crowd called into action during the live BBC session. For another man, with pride at a certain minimum, the presence of that PPPC Government marshaled crowd would be seen as insulting, and as nothing but unwanted, extra baggage. It made his own position, and confidence in himself, look weak, as though he needed that prop to make him look good.

When leaders are aware that they have not fairly distributed the relatively massive inflows of oil revenues across the various segments of citizens, some horribly trapped in need and poverty, then they see nothing wrong in going to such desperate lengths to make themselves look better than they are. The distribution of Guyana’s oil revenues is a point of great contentiousness, yet another sharp nail in Guyana’s social and political fabric. The needy and anxious grow increasingly unhappy. Impatient with what they see and interpret as more advantage being taken of them, and by the people they elected to office. Huge national budgets, but still those made into losers in Guyanese life watch as others get from the oil wealth that belongs to all, but they get nothing by afterthoughts and throwaways that shouldn’t be for beggars. This is the kind of passion that the government is so desperate to stifle into silence, to pretend that is not a part of local existence. So, the BBC World Questions program is cooked from the inception to when it reaches the finish line.

So, when we hear the government suddenly announcing that the $100,000 cash grant was beginning, we wondered if the timing was not another distraction. A distraction to shift the attention of Guyanese who need that cash grant money from their everyday woes. A distraction for them to refocus on the money that was first promised by President Irfaan Ali over a year and a half ago, and then afterwards. When people are desperate, they concoct any distraction to reset the scrutiny fixed on them. Neither leaders nor governments are different in this respect, and that could be what is now being with the cash grant announcement.

There’re litmus tests that prove the PPPC Government’s fairness in distributing oil revenues. Less complaining voices, less poor Guyanese, a government less desperate to prove its fairness.

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BBC programme, Editorial, Guyana's oil revenues, oil sector, PPPC

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