OPINION: A middle finger for Guyanese, $40 million for access to info office

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 February 2026, 22:59 by Writer

By GHK Lall

The PPP Govt has become skilled at sticking it to Guyanese. So skilled that doing so has been raised to art form and mission statement in a party that has lost footing, morals and ethical moorings. The PPP hasn’t lost its fingers, though. The middle finger is reserved to stick into the face of citizens who stand up, who object, who protest in the media and near sensitive public places. Say, write, and do what the hell pleases, but nothing is going to change. Not a dollar different. Not the difference of a fresh, new day. Not one trusted, dependable party loyalist touched, corrected, or removed. Nothing changes; everything stays the same. Of course, the PPP Govt’s finely tuned, and richly-gassed propaganda machine goes into high gear to churn out more brainwashing tonics to steer the thinking of locals to look favorably at the government’s disdainful efforts.

Here’s one such disdainful effort: $40 million in this year’s budget for the Access to Information Office. If that is not a middle finger in the face of Guyanese, nothing else qualifies. Guyanese have toed the line (submitted their requests in proper form, and as guided). There is $40 million for access to info that is inaccessible. Concerned Guyanese of conscience have walked the picket line in rain and shine (for fair access to info, which is embedded in the law). Still, that $40 million came to the access to info office, to maintain the charade of such access being alive and flowing. Resourceful Guyanese have appealed to the president for intervention, a leadership decision (the buck stops here), only for the national leader to come out with the mindboggling. His idea of leadership involves seeing only what he wants, while remaining so terribly shortsighted as to be medically (presidentially) sightless. And, hearing the cries originating from a distressed information environment, but then comporting himself as though that is drowned out by the thunder of his own music. It’s the latest hit record from PPP producers. Here are some of its lyrics, which gain inspiration from the postures at elevated levels.

Don’t give Guyanese one damn thing of value. Conceal from them, keep them at bay. Do not concede a single inch. Make a fool of them. Make a mockery of them. So, another $40 million budgeted is the reward for a trusted PPP insider to stand firm at the access to information bridge and yield only negligible scraps of paper. The sheets of paper with substance on them, that tells the Guyanese people how both the PPP and PNC have run their business, prioritize their interests. From oil secrets to the environment, could be so disturbing, so revealing and damaging that they have to be kept under lock and key, the tightest guard. The PPP has the right man for that job. What is right for the government is bad for Guyanese, as has been proven frequently. One indication of how untrustworthy the PPP Govt now is, the PNC ordered a review of the circumstances surrounding the signing of the 2016 Exxon-Guyana oil contract by Clyde & Co. a UK-based firm. There is no more compelling document for Guyanese than that January 2020 report. They want to know what it reports about the escrow letter that is linked to the Bridging Deed, and other related financial areas of significance.

The unthinkable took hold: that same Clyde & Co. Report that may contain so much is one of the key documents held onto by the PPP, as though its secrets are so damaging that it is best that they remain hidden. After blasting the oil contract left, right, and center, the report on how it came about under the PNC is being fiercely guarded by the PPP, of all people. What is preventing the access to info office from releasing that crucial document? What does the PPP fear? What and who is the PPP protecting? What favors is the PPP doing the PNC re that buried oil contract report? After a bruising interval between the December 2018 no-confidence motion and the August 2020 elections’ result, and with passions high, that Clyde and Co. review has been deep-sixed.

Secrets, political secrets, leadership secrets, access to info secrets are all managed with unceasing resolve. Even the courts appear stuck. After all this, the access to information office gets $40 million. Guyanese get the middle finger from the PPP Govt.