Laws must be revamped to cater for investors – Ali

Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 March 2026, 16:18 by Writer

President Irfaan Ali on Monday instructed that Guyana’s legislative framework take account of concerns that had been raised by foreign investors in the areas of trade and property.

“This is not speaking in abstract. We are seeing this from investors, whether from the US (United States), from the UK (United Kingdom), from the Middle East. The portfolio, our investors and investment portfolio is changing, and the laws governing their operation are somewhat different,” he said at the launch of the revised laws of Guyana (December 31, 2022) and the law reports of Guyana (2008-2011).

Dr Ali said while a lot of investors were coming to Guyana from the Western Hemisphere, mainly from the US, the country’s laws, including those related to arbitration, were heavily based on the British system. “More and more, these are becoming critical points of negotiations in agreements, critical points of negotiations in MOUs (memoranda of understanding) and we have to address this. Guyana is in a different frame of development because of what is taking place here where the investments are coming from,” he said.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, who is also Chairman of the Law Revision Commission, said Guyana’s recent law revision project was financed up to December, 2021 to the amount of US$350,000 by the Canadian government under the Improved Access to Justice in the Caribbean (IMPACT Justice).

Mr Nandlall said the Guyana government injected an additional US$100,000 to include a number of laws that were passed in 2022.

He said approximately 325 pieces of subsidiary legislation were revised, and funded by the Guyana government at a cost of US$130,000.

Additionally, he said his government paid GY$178,640 million for printing 200 sets of 19 volumes of the revised laws of Guyana. 

The law reports (2008 to 2021), he explained, contains “the significant decisions” emanating from cases decided by Guyana’s High Court, Court of Appeal, and the Caribbean Court of Justice. 

“This launch is the culmination of a project that will allow easy access to two primary sources of law, statute law, that is legislation enacted by Parliament and secondly, judge-made law; that is law made by judicial decisions interpreting and applying the laws enacted by parliament,” he said. 

President Ali said he wants to see the laws placed on artificial intelligence (AI)-powered websites rather than on those that are manually searchable.

He said Mr Nandlall has assured him that that would be the next phase of development.

“The websites now must be interactive, must be able to have an interactive platform through which people access information with a deep AI backbone.,” he said.