CIOG evicts canteen operator after her TikTok video criticising cost-of-living

Apr 17, 2026 News

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(Kaieteur News) – A canteen operator has been ordered to vacate her space at the Woolford Avenue complex of the Central Islamic Organization of Guyana just days after posting a “humorous” TikTok video referencing the rising cost of living under President Irfaan Ali. Farha Najab, who has operated the canteen for five years, told Kaieteur News she suspects the abrupt eviction notice may be retaliation, noting that no explanation was provided by CIOG as to why she must vacate from the canteen on or before April 30, 2026.

The woman explained to this publication that after she made the video and posted it on Monday afternoon, on Tuesday her husband received a call from an official of the Muslim Youth Organisation which is next door to CIOG, pertaining to the video.

“One of the officials expressed to my husband that the video, that I posted was not funny and it was disrespectful. He did not say take it down, he insinuated to the point that I should take it down. So, my husband did express to him that it was for humor purposes, it was not attacking anybody personally because most of what was said was quite unrealistic,” the woman said.

She recalled on Wednesday morning that while operating the canteen she received a call from a staff from CIOG’s Accounts Department and they asked to see her. The canteen operator stated that after the rush hour that morning she then went to the staff and there she was handed the letter, which was signed by President of CIOG.

Najab explained that she thought she was called in relation to her application for renewing her contract but this was not the case.

Having been operating the canteen for some five years, Najab said that her contract with CIOG was expired in December 2025 and since then she has been constantly going to their office to renew the contract. The reason for the delay she was told is that the General Manager had resigned, so there was no one in the position that would sign off on her documents.

The woman noted that after the canteen was not operating during Ramadan and then the Easter school break, when classes resumed on Monday she reached out back to them regarding the contract since three months have passed into the new year. She was told they would get back to her.

“When she called me Wednesday morning that she wanted to see me, I immediately thought it was for us to go through the contract and do the signing up. Now I went in and she handed me the letter and the letter was very vague, very short…Your contract was expired and as such you are asked to vacate the premises and hand over CIOG’s property on or before 30^th April,” she related.

Najab said she then asked for a contact information for the CIOG’s President regarding the letter and to provide an explanation. Having contacted him via email, she said, “I expressed to him the eagerness for me to renew my contract, how many times I visited the staff, I expressed to him my proactive efforts to acquiring his contact information and get my contract done for the past three months into the year. So he emailed back very concise to say that the CIOG is not looking to renew contract at this moment and that was it.”

She noted that she even tried to appeal to him that if there is any leniency that could be given in timeframe for the vacation because she is a mother of five and would have invested a load of money to restock the canteen because school would have started a few days ago.

Najab said having been operating the canteen for five years, she has been close with CIOG for some 11 years and over those years she has always had a good relationship with them.

The canteen she has been operating alongside her husband is the main source of income for them to provide for their family.

With no explanation for the sudden letter, the woman said she could only suspect it stemmed from the Tik Tok video she did, which she has since deleted.

“We had good communication for the past five and a half years, this is so sudden, this is so abrupt. I have never felt victimized by CIOG, because I have been in the system of CIOG even before I got the snackette. I was a teacher and I have worked in the office. So this came as a surprised for me,” she expressed.

Feeling overwhelmed about the situation, she told Kaieteur News that “All that I wanted from them is some amount of leniency in the timeframe given and some amount of explanation. Let me know If  I have done something that has caused this action.”

Opposition Leader, Azruddin Mohamed who went to the canteen and learned about the situation in a video expressed that this is an injustice and has since expressed that this is an injustice. His party, the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) in a statement expressed “grave concern over the PPP Government’s continued pattern of targeting and punishing citizens for expressing political dissent.”

“In any democracy, individuals must be free to speak, critique, and share their views without fear of retaliation or loss of livelihood. The use of state influence and affiliated institutions to silence opposing voices is a dangerous abuse of power that undermines the fundamental rights of all Guyanese,” the party continued.

WIN further called for this to cease immediately and for all citizens to be allowed to speak freely without fear of victimization or loss of livelihood.

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• Azruddin Mohamed, CIOG, cost-of-living, Islamic

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