Wales GTE – endless intrigue

Jun 28, 2026 Editorial, News

Editorial…

(Kaieteur News) – A landmark Guyana project that is its most expensive onshore one to date. Around it is a shadowy Venezuelan connection. Add two American banks, one Puerto Rican-based. Plus, US Courts, the FBI, and more Venezuelans all represent part of the context of Guyana’s US$2B Wales gas-to-Energy (GTE) project. It is a project going one way, in circles. The people who should provide clarity seal their lips and sit on their hands. There is the project’s Task Force and, at the top, the Guyana Government performing as quiet, uninvolved spectators.

President Irfaan Ali usually talks up a storm. Always with a ready answer, like Mr. Fixit. He now keeps his distance, limits himself to his characteristic hollow platitudes. For US$2B, local taxpayers get only political commercials from their president. Meanwhile, disputes rage. Delays lengthen. Key players absent themselves, become more secretive. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana’s chief oil and gas policymaker apparently has all but abandoned that role. Truth be told, he has put so much distance between the GTE project and himself that the impression could be had that he never had anything to do with its crippled existence. It is not his brainchild. He is not the driving force behind getting it off the ground, pushing it forward, and defending it for years. Until he found it convenient to erase himself from the GTE map. Now, former Task Force Head, reengineered to Project Consultant, Winston Brassington, is the go-to person for answers. He has had none.

How is it that a Venezuelan family, and a Venezuelan controlled bank, was allowed to be a part of the US$2B GTE project? Was the proper due diligence done? Or was the Wales GTE a scheme from the first day that had only one way to go? Lead this expensive and much-needed project to a place of confusion and chaos? Who in the PPP/C Government has anything to say about why people on the receiving end of an FBI raid, and US Court proceedings, are involved in the Wales GTE project? Or where local records indicate a curiously-timed series of flights to this country? Who in the government can offer what is credible? Who, and this ranges from President Ali to Prime Minister Phillips to Vice President Jagdeo has the confidence to face Guyanese and give them a full accounting?

There is the Venezuelan connection that does not comfort. On the one hand, there are Venezuelans around Guyana’s largest onshore project, one with future connection to this country’s sensitive energy grid. On the other hand, there are Venezuelans arrested for their alleged involvement in a gun bust involving a large number of high-powered weapons. Economic migrants from Venezuela should always be welcomed in Guyana. But we at this paper are concerned that Venezuelans with the history that they have are so close to the Wales GTE, as leaked documents indicate. The government cannot be this blind, nor this negligent, with a project that cost as much as the GTE, and from which so much is expected. Could it be less a question of the PPP/C Government being not so careless, but of elements in its leadership so devious that they will carry out this nation’s business with any Tom, Dick, and Harry. Due to such action guaranteeing their own self-enrichment.

Americans, Cubans, and Venezuelans are not seen as a problem in this country. Only those that pose a risk to the welfare of Guyanese, those who are out to gouge citizens, and those whose past confirm that they should not be here. Definitely not around the US$2B Wales GTE. The record of the PPP/C Government notes its incredible success engaging companies with certain shaky attributes. They cannot get big jobs done (Skeldon, Amaila Falls). They cannot be trusted to deliver on time and within the original contract terms (Cheddi Jagan Airport). They cannot measure up when a spotless record is needed. So that citizens believe they are in the best hands, and will get full value for their sacrifices. How the PPP/C Government is so skilled at recruiting the same kind of companies and principals repeatedly beats us. The Wales GTE seems to have attracted an army of them, to this country’s detriment.

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Editorial, Wales Gas-to-Energy, Wales GtE, Winston Brassington

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