Jun 28, 2026 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – A landmark Guyana project that is its most expensive onshore one to date. Around it is a shadowy Venezuelan connection. Add two American banks, one Puerto Rican-based. Plus, US Courts, the FBI, and more Venezuelans all represent part of the context of Guyana’s US$2B Wales gas-to-Energy (GTE) project. It is a project going one way, in circles. The people who should provide clarity seal their lips and sit on their hands. There is the project’s Task Force and, at the top, the Guyana Government performing as quiet, uninvolved spectators.

President Irfaan Ali usually talks up a storm. Always with a ready answer, like Mr. Fixit. He now keeps his distance, limits himself to his characteristic hollow platitudes. For US$2B, local taxpayers get only political commercials from their president. Meanwhile, disputes rage. Delays lengthen. Key players absent themselves, become more secretive. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana’s chief oil and gas policymaker apparently has all but abandoned that role. Truth be told, he has put so much distance between the GTE project and himself that the impression could be had that he never had anything to do with its crippled existence. It is not his brainchild. He is not the driving force behind getting it off the ground, pushing it forward, and defending it for years. Until he found it convenient to erase himself from the GTE map. Now, former Task Force Head, reengineered to Project Consultant, Winston Brassington, is the go-to person for answers. He has had none.