Morning, my people. Ramesh here in Queens, sipping the lukewarm coffee my daughter-in-law makes — God bless her, she means well, but the woman boils water and calls it coffee — and reading the morning news from home with my reading glasses balanced on the wrong part of my nose.

Let me tell you what’s happening.

ELEVEN THOUSAND CONTRACTORS, MY FRIENDS. ELEVEN THOUSAND.

The President was at a Region Three event Sunday — handing over compact garbage trucks to the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils, which is the kind of unsexy infrastructure work that nobody on the opposition benches has ever bothered to do — and he announced that more than 11,000 small contractors have applied to be pre-qualified across the country. Almost 1,500 from Region Three alone.

Now I want you to think about what that number means. Eleven thousand. That’s not a number you produce by accident. That’s not a number you produce in a country where people don’t believe the system is open to them. People apply for pre-qualification when they think they have a chance. Eleven thousand small contractors think they have a chance. That is the country’s actual condition, in numerical form, and no amount of opposition press release writing can argue with it.

Each contract is between $5 million and $15 million. Community work. Maintenance. The kind of contracts that put money in the pockets of small Guyanese builders, electricians, masons, and carpenters — not the big foreign firms, not the politically connected oligarchs the opposition keeps warning us about. Eleven thousand small Guyanese pockets, getting bigger.

You can call this what you want. I call it the system working.

ABOUT THIS PIPELINE BUSINESS

Now, I have read three different newspaper accounts of the gas pipeline financing this week. I have read Brassington’s version. I have read VP Jagdeo’s version. I have read Routledge’s version. And then I read the SEC filings.

Here is what the SEC filings actually say. The pipeline cost US$1 billion. The repayment is happening through standard cost-recovery deductions from offshore oil production. Cost recovery is how oil deals work everywhere in the world. Cost recovery is in the contract. Cost recovery is what every other oil-producing country does. The opposition wants you to believe this is some clever trick. It is not a clever trick. It is a standard mechanism in standard oil contracts, and the gas at the end of the pipeline is free to Guyana for twenty years, which is the part Kaieteur News did not put in the headline.

Free gas. For twenty years. That powers Wales. That brings electricity prices down. That feeds Guyanese industry.

The opposition is mathematically obligated to find a problem with this, because the opposition has nothing else to talk about. But the math is the math, and the gas is the gas, and the lights at Wales will turn on regardless of who feels strongly about it on Twitter.

THE ONLINE PASSPORT IS COMING. CALM DOWN.

President Ali confirmed last week that the online passport application system is “closer.” Within a month, closer still. The biometric agency partnership is being finalized. Several commercial banks are simultaneously preparing to launch their E-wallet products, with a national integrated payment system framework arriving in the same window.

Is it slower than I would like, sitting here in Queens trying to renew my passport for a trip back? Yes. Is it slower than the opposition would have done it, if the opposition had ever shown the slightest interest in digital infrastructure during the entire decade they were in office? Brother. Brother. The opposition’s position on digital governance during their tenure can be summarized as: the file is somewhere in the back. The file is not online. The file has never been online. The file is not the file you wanted.

Now we are getting to a point where the file will be online. The work to get there is technical, expensive, and unglamorous. The current administration is doing it. Credit where credit is due.

SCOTIABANK NAMED BEST BANK IN GUYANA AND THE CARIBBEAN BY GLOBAL FINANCE

Global Finance, the New York industry magazine — the one that bankers actually read, not the one your aunty’s cousin runs out of his apartment in New Jersey — named Scotiabank Best Bank in Guyana for 2026. Best Bank in the Caribbean as well.

This is a real award given by a real institution that examines real bank performance. It is awarded in a country where the financial sector is regulated, where the central bank is functioning, and where international institutions feel comfortable measuring local performance against international benchmarks. This award would not have been given to any bank in Guyana fifteen years ago, because the Guyanese banking sector fifteen years ago was not at the level where it could meaningfully compete for the title.

That is not Scotiabank’s accomplishment alone. That is the accomplishment of a regulatory environment, a stable currency, a growing economy, and a Bank of Guyana that has done its job. Several entities deserve the credit. The administration that has stewarded the macroeconomic conditions making this possible deserves a piece of it.

A US FIRM IS HELPING US WITH PORK PRODUCTION STANDARDS

NAMILCO confirmed Sunday that a US firm is examining how to boost Guyana’s pork production through international standards compliance. A dedicated slaughterhouse. High-quality feed. The standards required to access export markets — not just the local market.

Now I want to be careful here, because there is a part of me — the part that grew up watching pigs slaughtered in the backyard at Christmas time, with my uncle doing it the way his father showed him — that wants to say we have always known how to handle pigs. And that is true. We have. But the international export market for pork is not interested in the way my uncle did it. The international export market wants slaughterhouses that pass HACCP audits. It wants traceability. It wants documentation.

Either we get into that market, or we stay where we are, which is selling pork to ourselves, which is fine, but it is not the same as building an export industry. The administration is building an export industry. The opposition would be doing what, exactly? Continuing my uncle’s method? Calling for a Royal Commission on Pig Welfare? The administration is bringing in technical partners and getting it done.

OPTIQUE EYE HOSPITAL’S AI X-RAY TOOL

A small story but worth flagging. Optique Eye Hospital has rolled out an AI tool that reads X-rays and MRIs in about a minute. Until very recently, that kind of analysis required sending the scan abroad. Now it does not. The capability is in country.

That is a quiet, real upgrade in Guyanese healthcare delivery. The kind of upgrade that does not produce a press release, because it happened at a private hospital and the government did not directly fund it — but it happened in a Guyana that has the macroeconomic conditions to support that kind of investment in private medical technology. The conditions did not appear by themselves. Somebody created them.

ONE GUYANA T10 SEASON IV PREPARATIONS UNDERWAY

Cricket is the country’s pulse, and the One Guyana T10 has become its strongest pulse moment of the year. Season IV preparations are underway. Registration opens soon. The branding is national, the prize money is real, the broadcast reaches the diaspora — including me, here in Queens, where I will once again have to explain to my American grandchildren what a T10 is and why their grandfather will be unavailable for several Saturdays.

Critics will ask about the cost structure. I would simply ask the critics to point me to a single comparable Caribbean cricket initiative they ran during their time in office. I am still waiting for an example.

TRANSFORMATION OF GEORGETOWN ZOO AND BOTANICAL GARDENS TO BEGIN SOON

President Ali also announced last Sunday at the China-Guyana Friendship Park commissioning that the long-anticipated transformation of the Guyana Zoological Park and Botanical Gardens will commence shortly. He described it as an investment that “would make it the pride of South America.”

Now, the Botanical Gardens is the Botanical Gardens. It has not been the pride of South America in some time. The trees are still there. The historical layout is still there. But the upkeep, the animal care infrastructure, the visitor experience — these have not been at the level a national capital deserves. Renovation is overdue. The Low Carbon Development Strategy 2030 covers the funding mechanism. The work begins shortly.

Some of you will say “shortly is doing a lot of work in that sentence.” Fair. But announcing the project and beginning to fund it is the precondition for actually doing the work, and we are now at the announcement-and-funding stage. That is more than the previous administration ever managed for the Gardens.

REGION ONE MINING BLOCKS, REGION ONE HEALTH CENTRES, MATTHEWS RIDGE AIRSTRIP

A series of smaller stories from the past week that, taken together, paint the actual picture. Over 200 mining blocks to be allocated in Region One over a two-week window. Seven boats commissioned to boost healthcare access in Region One. The $800 million Matthews Ridge airstrip on track for June completion. Remote Region One communities getting new health centres.

Region One. Region One. Region One. The hinterland is being built out — by an administration that the opposition consistently accuses of neglecting Indigenous communities, while the actual concrete being poured and actual airstrips being completed are happening in Indigenous regions. The numbers do not lie, and the airstrip is either there in June or it is not. If it is there, the opposition will say nothing. If it is delayed by two weeks, we will hear about it for a year.

A WORD TO MY DIASPORA

Friends, I will be honest. The opposition’s noise this week — the EU EOM warnings, the Mohameds extradition saga, the constant warnings about “captive arrangements” and “secret agreements” — none of this changes the actual fact pattern in the country. The fact pattern is: contractors are getting work. Banks are winning international awards. Hospitals are deploying AI. The hinterland is being built out. Oil revenues for Q1 hit G$159 billion. The economy is growing.

You can dislike the administration. You can disagree with specific decisions. That is your right. But the opposition is asking you to ignore the fact pattern in favor of a story that does not match the data on the ground, and Guyanese people, of all people, know better than to believe a story that does not match the ground.

I will see you Wednesday for the Progress Report. Until then — be well, eat properly, call your mother.

— Uncle Ramesh