Blitzkrieg on the Waterfront: PPP’s 48-Hour Heist of Georgetown’s Crown Jewels

Mar 31, 2026 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Last Thursday morning: 22 of Georgetown’s golden arteries—Regent’s bustle, Vlissengen’s roar, Camp Street’s commerce, Robb’s retail pulse—yanked from the Mayor and City Council’s grasp by cold gazette decree. Friday dawn: the former City Constabulary Training Complex on Water Street, a dilapidated husk guarding Demerara River’s edge, wakes to “No Trespassing” signs screaming Government of Guyana—Earmarked for Immediate Development. Private guards from R.K. Security. Guyana Police Force officers stonewalling councillors. Deputy Mayor Denise Miller’s voice cutting through: “This is a hostile takeover of this city.”

Mayor Alfred Mentore calls it bullyism. Councillor Lelon Saul names it a threat to democracy. Local Government Minister Priya Manickchand counters with colonial title deeds from Demerara and Essequibo, claiming State ownership of the long-vacant riverfront prize. The photo plastered across WhatsApp groups shows the truth in Technicolor: weathered walls, iron gates, government branding—a waterfront fortress now flying central colours, its municipal lineage disputed in real time.

This is no haphazard land grab. This is choreography with a predator’s rhythm—streets seized for daily optics, now the riverfront snatched for skyline spectacles. Thursday’s commercial corridors feed the campaign’s foreground; Friday’s waterfront jewel crowns the backdrop. Two days. Two conquests. One devious architecture: control Georgetown’s postcards, then claim its panoramas.

Understand the geometry of this prize. Water Street’s old training complex doesn’t merely sit on the Demerara—it commands it. Prime real estate where condos could pierce the clouds, hotels could lure tourists, “public-private partnerships” could mint millionaires. A developer’s fever dream, left to rot under City Hall’s watch—or so the narrative goes. Now “rediscovered” as State land, perfectly timed when municipal revenues bleed from those 22 streets and local elections flicker on the horizon. The blitzkrieg pace betrays no coincidence, only calculation.

Flashback to the template: the Leonora Sugar Estate mansion, nationalized in the 1970s from British owners Jessels and sitting under Guysuco control, then transferred to NICIL—Bharrat Jagdeo’s holding pen for choice privatized assets during his presidency. In the early 2000s, Irfaan Ali as Housing Minister quietly claimed it under shadowy colonial title arguments, without transparent transaction documents. What began as national wealth ended as ministerial acquisition. Water Street echoes that same playbook.

Mayor Mentore vows a High Court injunction. Councillors demand the sign’s removal. Police officers stand mute. Minister Manickchand promises green spaces for “the good of residents.” But peel back the rhetoric: streets stripped of billboard fees, vending permits, festival revenues; a waterfront fortress now central government’s to auction as “development.” City Hall, already starved, watches its arteries and anchors slip away. The council governs potholes while the Executive claims panoramas.

This is Machiavellian poetry—visual conquest without firing a shot. The 22 streets become daily billboards of “PPP competence”: fresh parapets where citizens commute. Water Street becomes the money shot: ribbon-cuttings on the river, skyline transformations branded for ballots. Revenue rerouted from opposition-led council to ruling-party coffers. Democratic mandate suffocated not by dissolution, but dismemberment. Consultation? A courtesy for lesser powers. When Local Government Minister declares colonial deeds superior to elected authority, the signal screams: municipalities are tenants, not owners.

The sting lands hardest in the silence—what remains? If streets go Thursday and security complexes Friday, what falls Saturday? Markets already circling the drain of central control. Waste contracts bypassed. The pattern accelerates: asset by asset, Georgetown becomes a stage set for one party’s triumph, its elected stewards reduced to extras protesting from the curb.

No judge can unmake this blitz alone. Courts will wrestle title deeds—colonial ghosts versus municipal possession—but citizens must confront the principle: when does “public good” license unilateral trespass? When does “transformation” excuse disempowerment? The PPP/C paints Georgetown as their canvas, but every brushstroke erodes the constitutional promise of local self-rule.

Georgetown, awaken. Your streets were arteries of municipal life; now they’re campaign props. Your waterfront was dormant potential; now it’s executive ambition. Demand the deeds. Demand dialogue. Demand that “immediate development” means public benefit, not private windfall. Ask every aspiring candidate: Whose hands repaved Regent? Whose riverfront rises next?

From Thursday’s gazette to Friday’s fence, the PPP’s hand is revealed—not in chaos, but in chilling precision. The chessboard tilts. Citizens must flip it back, or watch their capital become someone else’s checkmate.

Regards,

Hemdutt Kumar

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• Georgetown, heist, PPP, PPP’s 48-Hour Heist of Georgetown, waterfront

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