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Irony and agony Oct 29, 2025 Editorial, News (Kaieteur News) – Infrastructure and more infrastructure, with Guyana moving along at a furious gallop. Then there is the other side, the hard and dark side, of that glittering infrastructure coin, in the presence of hungry Guyanese. The irony should not be lost on citizens in a country, where there is a government that boasts of being in a hurry with infrastructure projects, but there is an environment with numerous citizens who go hungry daily. It seems that the PPPC Government has not learned anything from the reaction of the electorate in the 2025 elections, and it is business and more business with infrastructure projects heading the list of priorities. Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, was in fine form recently. “Guyana’s infrastructural development has taken center stage largely because in the construct of things, when you’re battling hard for resources, you have to judge between what is extremely important and what can be done.” We thank Minister Edghill for unveiling where the PPPC Government’s heart is, and in unmistakable terms. It bears repeating: “Infrastructural development” stands at “center stage” because it “is extremely important.” According to Minister Edghill, that is the judgment of the government, one in which he is a leading pilot. We help him to remember something that he apparently forgot from his other life. The strong has a responsibility to take care of the weak, the rich to give attention to the poor, and the powerful to be aware of the vulnerable, and tend to their needs. Needs not wants, is what we put before Minister Edghill. There are all those Guyanese living with heavy mental anguish, pure agony in the stomach, because they do not have that dollar to buy basic food items, so that there is a meal of some sort for their families. Why is their hunger, their hopelessness, not taking “center stage” is what we ask the minister? Why in the judgment of his PPPC Government is their struggle not “extremely important”, of the highest importance, is what we look to Minister Edghill for a proper answer? It could be any answer that he is capable of giving, but one that has only what is genuine about it. There is the irony and agony of Guyanese being the most talked about country in the world, and almost half of its citizens gasping for air, because they can’t make it. Not enough money to buy food items means that there is not enough to eat. And why should that be in an oil rich country with a small population, a country that is producing 650,000 barrels of oil a day? It is not the paltry quantity of 6,000 barrels a day, or even 60,000 barrels daily, but 650,000 barrels of oil production daily. This is not only about the irony and the reality of Guyanese agony, it is of the national tragedy that clearly the PPPC Government does not see fit to put at “center stage” and keep it there, because it is so “extremely important” to leaders and ministers. To compound the irony and agony, President Ali took center stage to do what he does well. It is to demonstrate how excited he is to talk about food security. Yet there is little to no connection to, nor the kind of resolution needed by, so many Guyanese who are forced to go without proper meals every day of the week. The president stares into the future, while presiding over massive infrastructure projects, and talks up food security. And right now, and right at his feet, before his eyes, there are those masses of Guyanese who only know how much obtaining food has been a challenge for them. Much has been promised during the elections, and now that the PPPC Government has been returned to power, it must deliver. The concern is that the sum of the promises has its helpful side, but it is a matter of degrees only. That alone should convey how difficult the circumstances of some Guyanese are in a country which has been the beneficiary of so many natural resource gifts, and in such quantities. Six years after the first barrel of oil was produced, no Guyanese should be going hungry. agony, Editorial, Irony, PPPC
