OPINION: Less a brain drain, more of a brain hemorrhage

Last Updated on Friday, 15 May 2026, 5:34 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Pres Ali and the PPP Govt celebrate jobs, jobs, jobs. Question One: who’s doing them? Sure, there are more jobs. Question Two: what kind of jobs? Since the people to do high-level, top-quality jobs aren’t here. They keep running away. When only Haiti did worse than Guyana (by one point) in the brain drain department, that title can’t apply anymore. The human capital loss being experienced by this country must rank as a brain hemorrhage at crisis proportions.

Revisit my first question: who’s doing the jobs, with Guyana’s horrendous human capital flight a chronic condition? Thankfully, there is no raging domestic violence here (like Haiti). But highly skilled Guyanese can’t leave fast enough. Guyana is not under the vise of crippling sanctions (like Venezuela before). Yet qualified Guyanese race uninterruptedly to the green pastures of North America. Maybe even Europe, if there’s a welcoming spot. Drs Ali and Jagdeo love to make comparisons to what the PNC did before 2020, and how they have been doing since. I suggest that they reach back to the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s of Burnham’s PNC and tell Guyanese what’s different today, how the PPP is better, with Guyana hemorrhaging of its best and brightest.

Truth be told, the PPP Govt must be categorized as doing worse. There was no massive oil wealth in the Burnham era. Nor the major inflow of jobs that can’t be filled with qualified people, because they are just not there. Whither Local Content in such circumstances? I go further and suggest that the 2026 UNDP “Democracy and Development Report” puts additional pressure and exposure on Guyana’s Bureau of Statistics most recent preliminary census numbers. When qualified professionals can flee from this country so continuously, and in this time of great oil wealth, there is only one question of merit. Why?

To hear the PPP Govt tell it, there is no discrimination, no political repression. There is One Guyana and freedom of expression, so it is also marketed. Guyana is a country operating not under the tormenting shadows of war and/or sanctions. Hence, it would be interesting to hear what the likes of Pres Ali and Vice President Jagdeo have to offer on this fancily titled Human Capital loss, which I describe in the more down-to-earth manner of brain hemorrhage. Further, the government and its spokes like to dismiss data as “aged”. Let’s see how they react to this 2026 UNDP “Democracy and Development Report.” It represents three full years of PPP Govt stewardship when oil millions tumbled into Guyana’s treasury with the weight and speed of an avalanche. When jobs boomed. Recheck my second question: what kind of jobs, when white collar Guyanese are busy reserving plane tickets rather than reserving a job for themselves?

Taken together, and to put it mildly, this is a damning indictment of the PPP Govt’s reign. It makes a mockery of One Guyana. What is One Guyana? Now so unpromising and inhospitable that many bright Guyanese are pushed to thinking and feeling that the better place for them is in barren Trumpian wastelands. It’s the state to which the US has been reduced. Barren for colored people from rathole places, to make the best use of one of his favorite expressions. Imagine freely and swiftly giving up, without a second thought, the rich possibilities of oil in the homeland, and exchanging that for the unknown and likely unwelcoming. To live in Guyana, and not wanting to be here at this time of all time must qualify as the most brutal condemnation of the Ali presidency and the PPP Govt. Not a word said. Not a word written. Just pack up, pick up, and gallop out of PPP Guyana.

Finally, Excellency Ali usually lets off steam at critics and naysayers. He can do the same with the 2026 UNDP “Democracy and Development Report.” Best wishes, Dr. President.