IF I had to sum up the past week in a headline, it would have to be: “Guyanese panicked over fuel shortage for no good reason”. In many countries, the war in the Middle East made people worry about soaring prices at the pump, and for very good reasons; here, sound government policy spared us that burden, leaving only imagined fears and public mischief dressed up as intelligence to fuel our anxieties.
On the ground, it played out like this: The line-ups at gas stations in Guyana were a scene out of a familiar playbook, specifically Azruddin Mohamed’s worn-out shtick. You’d think we would have learned by now to recognise a con artist. We’ve seen them by the barrels with every reincarnation of the People’s National Congress (PNC) and many of the bizarre lot who teamed up with them over the years. And now, the “We Invest in Nationhood (WIIN)” is proving just as adept at subterfuge. I’d like to think we are maturing as a nation, but this last week left me wondering what’s got into people.
The massive, thankfully short‑lived line‑ups at stations proved that even a serial mischief‑maker like Azruddin could make many people throw good old commonsense out the window. Azruddin dropped a match in a proverbial barrel of oil, and suddenly we were staring at a firestorm of our own making, hard to control, even after the facts were clear.
President Irfaan Ali jumped on it right away, assuring Guyanese not to worry; supplies were en route. He didn’t sugar-coat the challenges to supply lines. A war was raging, and Iran was still imposing a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz. The president met with stakeholders and posted pictures on his Facebook page, the social media platform that the majority of Guyanese gravitate towards for their daily fix of news and information, showing exactly who he was meeting with, and what they informed him about the shipments of oil and gas destined for Guyana.
It was credible information from the horse’s mouth, as they say. That’s leadership in action. No nonsense. The economy and people’s welfare are not things to trifle with. There is absolutely no question that he is the president, and he acts like one. He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. There were no rides in expensive cars with the AC cranked up for him to peep comfortably out the windows just to memorise licence plate numbers. This president took a bus and a river taxi to and from St. Stanislaus, where he excelled as a student. No one knows to this day whether Azruddin even completed high school.
As drivers panicked and the line-up at stations grew longer, a mischievous Azruddin framed the “No Gas” signs at stations as “a national crisis”, and, like lemmings, people headed for the ledge. Azruddin used it as proof that the government had failed to manage national resources. It ultimately backfired on him.
Consider this: WIIN’s leader is unable to manage his own court schedule. Why would anyone take his word on a matter so substantial as our ability to get from point A to B? But the nation will find out in two days whether Azruddin fares any better before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), or whether he will pull the same delay stunts that he has used, repeatedly, with Magistrate Judy Latchman and gotten away with?
Instead of calming anxiety, Azruddin, the Mohamed family and WIIN’s camp were busy triggering panic buying and unsafe fuel‑storage practices, which I observed with my own eyes. As the government was urging citizens not to hoard fuel, Azruddin was igniting a rush-to-buy and did nothing to calm public anxieties.
The more the government tried to debunk fake notices about a 10-week shortage, Azruddin’s cult-like following stoked fears. Prime Minister Mark Phillips issued a formal statement and public‑facing messages urging citizens not to panic‑buy or hoard, warning about the dangers of unsafe storage, and setting out a detailed schedule of incoming fuel cargoes to show that the squeeze was temporary.
A ceasefire between the United States and Iran, with Israel pushed into a corner, thankfully, appears to be holding. Soon, the world will look at this unnecessary war in our collective rearview as a very bad idea. When we do, we should remember Azruddin’s role, his language, his blame game, his fuelling of the rumour mill that triggered anxiety buying, for what it reveals about him and the politics he represents.
And let the record show that facts matter when it comes to this government. It always has, whether it’s addition or subtraction. Facts were presented in briefings, in meetings with importers, in shipment timetables, and with words that reassured the people of Guyana that the grid and the pumps would be supplied. In the end, Guyana did not run out of fuel, but it should have run out of patience with those who would burn down public trust for a few cheap political points.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.
