President Ali’s choice

Jul 13, 2026 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – President Irfaan Ali has talked much about his Long Creek farm on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway. Following up his words with actions have left many puzzled. The country needs more that the regular presidential speeches. Citizens need their president to prove his words have substance, with actions that inspire siding with him for one reason only. He has truth and transparency on his side.

Talk without action is nothing. Mere sound and bombast signifying nothing. The presentation of documents, everything related to his farm, could help him to convert some doubters. Those grown tired and numb from having to deal with politicians who take them for fools, mismanage their trust. Citizens have been left hanging too often. They have stood up for their leaders, only for embarrassment to follow. The president has all but sworn that all of his business at the Long Creek farm is clean and principled. In keeping with his standards, as he claims: what he preaches, he practices.

The president said he has all the related documents, from the land to the bustling four-footed and two-winged presences that live so sweetly on his farmland. It should, therefore, be the simplest of exercises to put them in the public domain. Instead of retreating behind well-rehearsed, self-promoting words, he must advance and put his cards on the table. Guyanese get an opportunity to stand as scrutineers of one who claims to be a servant leader. There has been too much talking already, since this matter of grave national importance broke into the news. One week later, how many Guyanese believe in President Ali more, and how many are waiting with bated breath to see what rabbit he will pull out of his hat? The standards he himself has set now follow him. He cannot shake them for they are almost like a second shadow.

The president is good at talking. He would do well as a 99 cents store manager. Plenty of sales talk, but not many quality products. We urge the president to put out what he has and let those speak for themselves. They are reliable, because they hold up under heavy pressure, prove to be superior. The worse that the president could do is to conduct himself the old way, by channelling this farm development into the hands of his own handpicked comrades. Citizens have lost confidence in what pretends to be honest inquiries. They have been so crude and uninspiring that they tar citizens with a string of indecencies.

President Ali should be aware of the slippery slope on which he stands. He has had many opportunities to correct huge and costly issues that have gone the wrong way. Generally, his standard has been to stand to the side, as if he is a disinterested stranger, and what is happening is none of his business. Two of the more glaring examples that come to mind are very familiar to weary citizens. The first is the expensive Wales Gas-to-Energy project that cannot find its footing, gather some momentum to get to the finish line. The second is the Belle View pump station project that could not bear its own weight, never got off the ground. In both instances, the president seems to have washed his hands, more pleased to seek cover in the shadows.

The difference in those two projects and the Long Creek farm is that the two projects are government-initiated, while the farm has his personal fingerprints written all over it. He has quickly admitted to ownership, since to do otherwise would have left him in an indefensible position. His admission has led to calls for full disclosure on all aspects of his ownership of that farm, whatever its acreage and its flock of riches. We at this paper encourage the president to disclose all the instruments of his landholding, his accumulations of various physical and animal assets, and his past arrangements for the financing of everything related to that farm. He has an opportunity to set one of the best examples for leadership transparency. President Ali should not limit himself to words alone. He submits the backups for his farm, opens himself to honest scrutiny. He will either rise or he will crumble.

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Farm, Long Creek, President Irfaan Ali, Soesdyke-Linden Highway

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