HGP Nightly News – Foreign Affairs Minister Hugh Todd has offered an unusually candid admission: Guyana’s diplomatic corps simply does not have the manpower to compete for attention in the corridors of Washington power.
Testifying before the Committee of Supply on February 10, 2026, Todd defended the government’s retention of two prominent U.S.-based lobbying firms, DR Consultancy and Continental Strategy, at a combined cost exceeding US$90,000 per month. The disclosure came during scrutiny of a $269 million allocation for advocacy services within the ministry’s $10.03 billion budget.
The admission lands against a revealing backdrop. On the same day Todd defended the lobbyist contracts, he confirmed that the ministry’s new Foreign Service Institute building is only 35 per cent complete, with completion now projected for May 2026, nearly a year after it was initially expected. A $138.3 million allocation funds its construction, part of broader efforts to build institutional capacity that, by the minister’s own acknowledgment, remains insufficient for the nation’s diplomatic ambitions.
“We don’t have the manpower or scale to compete for attention on our own in highly competitive global settings,” Todd told the committee. “The lobby firms help us manoeuvre the corridors of power to get to those offices that they need to hear from us.”
Opposition MPs pressed the minister on whether Guyanese expertise, particularly within the vast diaspora, was being underutilised in favour of expensive foreign contractors. Todd acknowledged that diaspora professionals often provide voluntary assistance but insisted that registered lobbying firms, staffed by seasoned former diplomats and credentialed operatives, offer unique access that Guyana cannot replicate internally.
Yet the contracts carry political baggage that extends beyond cost. Continental Strategy, one of the two named firms, was previously linked to efforts that resulted in U.S. congressmen publicly raising concerns about Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, then a candidate, labelling him “pro-Maduro” amid his family’s OFAC sanctions. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has repeatedly denied that the government instructed the firm to target Mohamed, stating the company’s mandate is exclusively to combat Venezuela’s territorial aggressions. Opposition members attempted to question Todd on whether the firms were involved in extradition matters, but the committee chairman disallowed the line of inquiry.
The numbers themselves have proven slippery. Todd initially indicated two firms were paid US$40,000 and US$50,000 monthly. He later clarified that DR Consultancy receives US$400,000 monthly under a one-year contract, nearly ten times the earlier figure, while Continental receives US$50,000 monthly on a six-month term. A third, unnamed firm is also retained, its cost undisclosed.
Todd maintains the expenditure is not a luxury but a necessity. “When you’re dealing with a very competitive global environment, and you as a country, in the protection of your people and the advancement of your country, you need outfits that have the reach and the capacity and the human capital to do that,” he said.
But the opposition’s questions linger. If Guyana’s Foreign Service Institute remains incomplete and its diplomatic corps understaffed, is the solution permanent capacity-building or indefinite contracting? And at what point does hiring access to Washington become a substitute for, rather than a supplement to, the sovereign diplomatic capacity a nation must ultimately build for itself?
