By Earl Bousquet

EACH time the so-called ‘small islander’ in me lands in Guyana these days, I can’t help but admire how the whole country seems like an ever-expanding construction site.
Major new infrastructural projects are being delivered – from four-lane highways between the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) at Timehri and the city of Georgetown, the new Bharrat Jagdeo Demerara River Bridge and new highways on the Corentyne, plus new projects at Bartica, including a new airport terminal, a new hospital and a world-class marina, as well as the many new hotels opened and under construction in and out of Georgetown, since 2020.
On his trip, I monitored President, Dr Irfaan Ali and his Cabinet of Ministers as they spent a weekend on the Corentyne (November 21-22) to update Berbicians on his PPP/Civic administration’s second-term plans for the ‘Ancient County’ in Region Six.
That outreach was a continuation of such high-powered visits to regions started during President Ali’s first term (2020-2025), and the latest reassured Berbicians of new plans to modernise the populous and expansive region, where more villages are named by numbers, instead of names.
Same with the visit to Bartica in Region Seven and an earlier one to Essequibo in Region Two (before the September 1, 2025 general and regional elections).
Saint Lucians and other Caribbean ‘islanders’ are impressed by the videos circulating online about how President Ali summoned contractors on government projects, to account for levels of implementation.
Unlike seen or heard in any other Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Guyana President had summoned contractors, permanent secretaries and other representatives of the Public Works and related ministries, to a public meeting — broadcast live — as he pointedly questioned contractors and government officials about works behind schedule, or otherwise considered unsatisfactory.
The President was as hard on faulty contractors as on related ministry officials, who also fell short in monitoring to ensure works were being delivered according to contract.
President Ali was just the same in his recent Corentyne cabinet outreach, where he took strong issue with contractors who fell short on agreed performance and delivery schedules.
He loudly expressed his government’s dissatisfaction with the pace of work on scores of existing structures being undertaken by two contractors on the new Corentyne Highway’s four-lane carriageway.
The President complained about works involving utilities relocations (water, electricity and communications) and structural upgrades, including paving works and construction of bridges and culverts.
The Ministry of Public Works had signed related contracts and construction was to have started since August 2024 and the President announced – there and then – that a special investigation will be launched into the contractors’ performances.
The investigation would also look into engineers’ supervision of the works.
But here again, this was not at all new, as the government had also earlier terminated several contracts for shoddy works — like failing to meet construction standards, use of defective materials, poor workmanship and incomplete structures.
Warnings had also been issued to suppliers of construction materials for major delays caused by inconsistent delivery, as well as delivery of sub-standard materials.
The Auditor General’s Office had previously recommended stronger project-monitoring measures in some cases.
The President and his ministers took similar approaches to projects involving interior (hinterland) transformation plans — as in Bartica, to upgrade Region Seven’s infrastructure through better health and social services, including a new 24-hour service to deliver access to 3,000,000 (three million) litres of treated water per day, as well as new high-speed internet and 5G connectivity services.
He said apart from a new ferry stelling, a proposed new marina will expand tourism, yachting, boating, river tourism and related hospitality services, that will increase businesses and employment.
An upcoming new link road from the new Bharrat Jagdeo Demerara River Bridge will also open new routes to more markets, goods and transport.
Indeed, the plan is to transform Bartica from being a traditional gateway to the nation’s interior gold fields through the Essequibo River, to a new tourism hotspot with improved river and road-transport services.
The President urged local aviation companies to transform recent generous tax and fuel concessions from his administration to make air transport more affordable for families depending on them for work, school and access to needed supplies.
After completion of the aerodrome and airport terminal, the upgraded stelling, marina, new roads and highways, hospital, water and high-speed internet services, “Bartica will proudly boast its interconnected pathways to the world by river, road and air…”
These developmental upgrades, he concluded, will make Bartica “no longer a gateway to pass through, but a destination to go to.”
As one who lived and worked in Guyana for at least six years following the Return of Democracy after 1992, I witnessed the beginning of new approaches to modernisation and development that continued after the presidencies of Dr Cheddi and Mrs Janet Jagan, through two terms under President Jagdeo and one with President Donald Ramotar.
When I left Guyana in 1999, oil and gas were yet to be discovered.
But until 2015, successive PPP/Civic administrations had started a significant reformation of the nation’s economic and developmental priorities, which moved Guyana from its traditional description as ‘one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere’ with the highest debt levels, to one that had finally started seeing positive economic growth and developmental projections.
Discovery of oil and gas and subsequent negotiations for contracts with American, Chinese and other ‘Big Oil’ companies (between 2015 and 2020), saw fundamentally different approaches to governance and national development.
But President Ali and his first administration legally took office in 2020 after a five-month delay that followed the hijacking of the government by the then outgoing administration that had refused to accept it had been voted out.
Since then, Guyana and Guyanese started seeing and feeling much-better than before, despite the one-sided contracts that left the country earning comparative pennies while Big Oil reaped billions of US dollars. Today, citizens have more confidence than ever, in better tomorrows.

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.