Good morning, Guyana. The weekend ended quietly the way a tin roof ends quietly — by the time you noticed the noise, it was already over. Coffee in hand. Let’s begin.
THREE CRIME STORIES BEFORE 9 A.M.
Demerara Waves did the work the rest of us didn’t want to do this morning. Before most of us had finished the first cup, the wire was already humming. By 8:23, four residents of Hope Estate, East Coast Demerara, were under arrest for alleged possession of a rifle and ammunition — picked up Sunday night during what the police called “an operation,” which is the official word for “we knew where we were going.” By 8:10, a Golden Grove fisherman was dead. By 8:02, a Venezuelan man was in custody for an illegal firearm and rounds.
That is a 21-minute window in which three separate East Coast incidents — guns in Hope Estate, a killing in Golden Grove, an arrest in between — moved across the news desk. None of them are connected. All of them happened. Anyone who tells you the East Coast is settling down should probably explain the timeline. The East Coast is not settling down. It is doing whatever the East Coast is doing, on schedule.
THE PIPELINE THAT PAYS ITSELF (KIND OF)
Kaieteur News spent last week unpacking what may be the most polite billion-dollar argument in Guyana. ExxonMobil built the pipeline that brings Liza gas to Wales. The pipeline cost roughly US$1 billion. The government said for years it would cost taxpayers US$55 million annually for twenty years. Brassington said one thing. Jagdeo said another. Routledge said a third. The SEC filings — the documents Exxon files in America under penalty of jail — say the repayment isn’t a loan at all. It’s a “standard cost-recovery deduction from offshore oil production.”
Translation: Guyana is paying for the pipeline by giving up oil revenue we would have otherwise received. Translation of the translation: the pipeline is free, and it isn’t, and it depends on which official you’re standing closest to. Translation of the translation of the translation: the contracts are still locked away, and there is presumably a reason for that. The country is funding a pipeline through cost recovery, but cost recovery isn’t free — it just doesn’t show up on a bill. Cost recovery is the kind of money you don’t see leaving your account because it never landed there.
HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER DID NOT INTERVENE IN SON’S ROAD INCIDENT, PRESIDENT SAYS
President Ali was asked Sunday whether Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond intervened on her son’s behalf in a road incident. The President said she had assured him she did not. The matter rests there for the moment, although the matter never quite rests, because the matter is one of those Guyanese matters where everyone has heard a different version from someone who knows somebody. The official answer is no intervention. The unofficial answer is being workshopped in seven WhatsApp groups as we speak.
THE PASSPORT PORTAL IS ALMOST READY (THIS TIME)
President Ali told reporters last week that the long-awaited online passport application system is “closer.” Within a month, he said, the country will be closer still. The system requires partnership with a biometric processing agency — the same kind of agency that handles international visa applications. The math for closer-within-a-month works out to closer-by-late-May, if all signs hold, which in Guyanese government IT scheduling means closer-by-late-July, possibly August.
In parallel, the national E-wallet system is also on the runway. Several commercial banks are ready to launch their own E-wallet products. The framework for an integrated payment system will arrive “over the coming month,” which is the same month from the passport timeline, somehow, simultaneously.
OVER 11,000 SMALL CONTRACTORS APPLIED FOR PRE-QUALIFICATION
Speaking at a Region Three garbage truck handover, the President announced that more than 11,000 small contractors have applied to be pre-qualified across Guyana. Region Three alone produced almost 1,500 of them. Each contract will be valued between $5 million and $15 million, focused on community infrastructure maintenance.
Eleven thousand contractors. If the contracts are evenly distributed, that’s roughly $50 to $150 billion in maintenance work. If they’re not evenly distributed — and history suggests they will not be — that is also a lot of contracts. The pre-qualification list itself is now one of the most coveted documents in the country. Somewhere there is a man who has been quietly compiling a separate list of who actually got the contracts. We look forward to reading it eventually.
A US FIRM WILL HELP US SLAUGHTER PIGS PROPERLY
NAMILCO confirmed Sunday that a US firm is examining the possibility of boosting Guyana’s pork production through international standards compliance. This includes the construction of a dedicated slaughterhouse and the use of high-quality feed. We have been raising and slaughtering pigs in this country since the Dutch were here. The pigs have always been slaughtered. The question of whether we have been doing it correctly, by international standard, is a question we apparently never thought to ask until a US firm raised it.
The pork is, by all available reports, fine. The pork has always been fine. But there is a category of pork — the kind that gets exported, the kind that wins contracts with hotel chains and supermarket import lines — that requires a standard our backyard pens do not produce. NAMILCO is moving toward that standard. Backyard pens will continue producing the other standard, which is also fine, which is the standard most of us actually grew up eating.
SCOTIABANK NAMED BEST BANK IN GUYANA AND THE CARIBBEAN BY GLOBAL FINANCE
Scotiabank picked up the title of Best Bank in Guyana for 2026 from Global Finance, the New York-based industry magazine that ranks these things. Same award for the Caribbean overall. The recognition is real. The bank has done well. The customers, however, may have one or two anecdotes about ATM queues and transfer fees that did not make it into the Global Finance methodology. Both things can be true.
CARIBBEAN AIRLINES RAISES TICKET COSTS
A fuel surcharge of US$15 to US$25 per sector kicked in on April 10. Tickets bought before that date are spared. Domestic Trinidad and Tobago flights are exempt — which is a reminder that Caribbean Airlines is, technically, a Trinidadian airline, and the math is being done from Port of Spain. Jet fuel is up 96.4% to US$195.19 per barrel since the start of the year, owing to the US-Israel-Iran situation, which has now put a dollar amount on the price of someone else’s war for the rest of us flying to Toronto.
Diaspora travelers are encouraged to check their Christmas-flight prices early this year. Last year was bad. This year may be worse.
MAHDIA GOLD MINER ARRESTED IN POTARO POLICE OPERATION
A 25-year-old gold miner from 111 Miles, Mahdia, was picked up Sunday during a police operation in Region Eight. Guyana Times had the brief; the details are minimal. “Several” matters, the report says, without elaboration. Mahdia operations follow a particular pattern. The operation happens. The arrest happens. The full charge sheet appears about three to five working days later, sometimes five to seven. We will know more by Friday. We will pretend to be surprised by what we learn.
OPTIQUE EYE HOSPITAL ROLLS OUT AI X-RAY ANALYSIS
In actually-good news, Optique Eye Hospital has introduced an AI tool that analyzes X-rays, MRIs, and other medical images in roughly one minute. This is the kind of thing that used to require sending the scan to a specialist, sometimes overseas, and waiting. Now it doesn’t. A real upgrade. The kind of news the country produces and then doesn’t quite know how to celebrate, because Guyana is more practiced at announcing things than delivering them, and a thing that has actually arrived feels almost unfamiliar.
ONE GUYANA T10 PREPARATIONS, AND WHO WILL COVER THE COST
Preparations are on stream for Season IV of the One Guyana T10. Registration opens soon. The competition is genuinely fun. The cost — venue, broadcast, prize money, security — continues to be largely opaque. The branding is national. The funding mechanics are not. We mention this only because the country has a tendency to ask “where did all that money go?” eighteen months after the fact, and it is healthier to ask it eighteen months in advance.
That’s your Monday. Forty-five minutes from now the East Coast may produce a fourth crime story. The pipeline math may have changed by lunchtime. The passport portal may or may not be a month closer. As always, we’ll tell you when we know.
— GDB Staff