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Guyana’s wealth belongs to the people – President Ali
(Kaieteur News) – Guyana’s vast natural resources, including its oil reserves “belong to every Guyanese,” President Irfaan Ali said Monday evening, even as he used the country’s 60th Independence Anniversary celebrations to reaffirm sovereignty over the Essequibo in the face of the ongoing border controversy with Venezuela.
Addressing those gathered at Fort Island in the Essequibo River for the Diamond Jubilee Flag-raising Ceremony, the president said the country’s offshore oil wealth must be managed for both present and future generations. “The oil beneath our waters is not the property of a government, it is the property of our people. It belongs to every Guyanese who came before us and to every Guyanese yet to be born,” he stated.
President Irfaan Ali addresses the Diamond Jubilee Flag-raising Ceremony alongside government officials, members of the security services and ceremonial guards.
President Ali’s remarks came as Guyana continues to experience economic growth due to the offshore petroleum production in which he pointed out that the Stabroek Block now exceeds 915,000 barrels per day, making Guyana, South America’s third-largest oil producer. As such, he said the country’s Natural Resources Fund is being strengthened to ensure revenues are saved and invested responsibly. “We hold it in trust, we spend it with purpose, we save it with discipline.”
Ali also reflected on the country’s transformation from a nation once heavily dependent on foreign-owned industries and burdened by colonial-era divisions. “Sixty years after Independence, we stand before the world in a position our founders could scarcely have imagined,” he said. “We are today the fastest growing economy on earth.”
The president said Guyana’s gross domestic product had expanded from US$229 million at Independence in 1966 to more than US$75 billion in purchasing power today. He also cited International Monetary Fund data showing Guyana recorded average real GDP growth of 47 per cent annually between 2022 and 2024.
But he warned that prosperity must not deepen political or ethnic divisions, urging Guyanese to reject “zero-sum politics” and embrace a shared national identity under the government’s “One Guyana” agenda. “No one should seek to divide Guyana in pursuit of power,” he said. “Government and opposition, private sector and labour, civil society and citizens, coastline and hinterland, no one should seek to divide.”
Meanwhile, Ali also addressed the decades-old territorial controversy with Venezuela over the Essequibo, which comprises more than two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, accusing Venezuela of continuously challenging Guyana’s sovereignty despite ongoing proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). “The Essequibo is Guyana’s,” he declared. “It has never been Venezuelan, nor was it ever Spanish. We will always defend our sovereignty. We will always defend our territorial integrity, but we will do so through peaceful means,” he said.
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