Azruddin Mohamed, leader of the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party and incoming Opposition Leader, has signaled that his team will concentrate its firepower on two fronts: scrutinizing the lean Ali administration’s use of Guyana’s money and demanding higher quality in public construction projects.
Mohamed expressed concern that the last National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was still reviewing accounts from the David Granger administration before Guyana’s oil windfall started. He believes the real test of accountability lies from 2020 onward, when President Irfaan Ali came in, oil production ramped up and government withdrawals from the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) began.
“We ain’t want hear about that. We want hear about 2020, when they had these big budgets,” Mohamed said, noting that his party’s representatives will push for detailed examination of the Irfaan Ali government’s spending. More than US$3 billion has already been withdrawn since 2022 from the NRF, with much of it funneled into new hospitals, schools, roads, and bridges.
Concerns about corruption have made oversight essential, according to Mohamed. “I want my people on those committees to check to see the level of corruption that took place under the Irfaan Ali-led administration from 2020, because we know it’s rampant,” he said.
The WIN leader also made it clear that his party intends to shine a spotlight on the execution of infrastructure projects in every region. He promised that contracts will be carefully monitored, with attention paid to whether contractors meet deadlines and deliver quality results.
“We will pay close attention to all these contracts. Every contract awarded out there, we will pay very keen and close attention to ensure that if the contractor can’t finish on time, we gon be raising it. If we think the work substandard, we gon put it out there. They won’t get an easy time with us,” Mohamed said.
The big bad wolf