Poverty reduction: Guyana’s oil

Sep 12, 2026 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Fighting poverty builds nations: less crime, better health, more trust in government. WIN says it’s the party committed to this. Guyana’s oil wealth gives it a chance — but only if the political climate allows the institutions needed to last.

Every country that turned resource wealth into lasting poverty reduction did so through institutions that survived changes of government. That takes a political environment that tolerates opposition and scrutiny, not punishes it.

Ecuador cut poverty from 37% to under 23% (2007–2016) after Correa renegotiated oil contracts and put revenue straight into the budget, expanding the Human Development Bond — cash payments tied to school and health checkups. Social spending rose from under 3% to over 8% of GDP. The lesson: cash payments work best paired with training and credit.

Bangladesh, with no oil, lifted 34 million people out of poverty (2010–2022) mainly through garment exports. But its 80-plus welfare programs missed the poorest, and a November 2025 World Bank report found progress has stalled, leaving 62 million at risk from inflation and weak job growth. The 2013 Rana Plaza collapse (1,000+ deaths) is a warning against betting on 1 industry without protecting workers.

Rwanda, rebuilding after 1994, cut poverty from 60% to under 40% by 2017, with a further 12% drop by 2023–24, credited to agriculture, diversification, and social protection.

Vietnam is the sharpest example: poverty fell from 60% to under 10% between the early 1990s and 2016, driven by the 1986 Doi Moi export reforms, with GDP per capita rising from under $700 to nearly $4,500.

4 countries, 1 lesson: smart policy turns growth into less poverty — and how policy is designed depends on who’s allowed to question it.

That’s why Guyana’s politics matter to this argument. A functioning opposition keeps institutions honest, especially 1 managing a fund meant to outlast any government. Guyana is currently gripped by what many NY-based diasporans call “Mohamed-mania” — intense scrutiny and, WIN supporters argue, targeted pressure on Azruddin Mohamed, the LOTO, his family, and allies, his female MPs, including a recent revocation of firearm licences seemingly disproportionate and politically timed.

But amid that pressure came a striking, gentler moment. On 10^th

September, 2026, many students from St. Stanislaus (“Saints”) passed the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts Compound and were heard yelling — not in anger, but in a warm, almost comforting way, with clear, loving diction — chanting: MOHAMED!! MOHAMED!! MOHAMED!! It was youthful reverence, unmistakable and unscripted, a spontaneous show of affection from children who had nothing to gain by it. That image — schoolchildren offering loving support outside a courthouse — says as much about the public mood as any poll could. One of Mr. Mohamed’s attorneys-at-law, and his father’s, Siand Dhurjon, is expected to submit to the court in closing arguments that some of the offenses “are not extraditable offenses under Guyana’s laws or even the extradition treaty” that Guyana has, as reported by Bert Wilkinson in WORLD NEWS on 31^st October, 2025. Siand is well known in the Caribbean legal fraternity as an upright lawyer with above-board integrity who always displays the highest professionalism, tact, and courtesy to any judicial officer he appears before.

Whether every state action here amounts to persecution or not, the pattern has fed a widely shared perception that dissent is being met with pressure rather than engagement. That perception itself does damage: it discourages the open scrutiny that keeps a resource fund honest for 30 years, not just 1 election cycle.

Practical step: send 6 top state attorneys-at-law to Quito to study, in legal detail, how Ecuador renegotiated its oil contracts and routed revenue into its cash-transfer program — splitting the work between contract law and program design, so Guyana comes back with usable legal models.

For Guyana, going forward:

1.​ A transparent fund channeling oil money into cash payments and safety nets tied to health and education, like Ecuador’s Bono.

2.​ Sustained investment in education and job training, as in Vietnam.

3.​ Stronger primary healthcare and nutrition programs.

4.​ Real diversification beyond oil — farming (coffee, coconut, cane, rice) and food processing, with rice as a major near-term growth driver.

5.​ A political culture that tolerates opposition and scrutiny of oil spending — because durable institutions can’t be built under pressure to silence critics.

Guyana has the resources. The open question is whether it will do the harder work of institution-building that made these 4 countries succeed — and whether “Mohamed-mania,” even amid moments like St. Stanislaus schoolchildren cheering a name outside a courthouse on 10^th September, 2026, is steering Guyana toward the opposite path.

Regards,

M. Shabeer Zafar, Barrister

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• better health, Guyana’s oil, less crime, Letters, Poverty Reduction, win

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