GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Former Finance Minister Winston Jordan has taken sharp aim at President Irfaan Ali’s freshly assembled Cabinet, accusing it of being more about politics than performance.
Appearing on the online programme Buxtonian Morning Time Thursday, Jordan said the government’s new lineup is padded with extra posts, recycled names, and even parliamentary secretaries who have not been assigned clear duties. That, he argued, means higher costs to taxpayers without the guarantee of better results.
Jordan warned that Guyana cannot afford what he sees as poor planning. He pointed to experienced officials being shuffled into positions that do not match their skill sets. “We are already a small country with limited human resources, yet we keep misplacing the few capable people we have,” he said.
Instead of expanding for expansion’s sake, Jordan urged the government to adopt a different structure. His suggestions included new ministries focused on oil and gas, digital transformation, and climate change. He also pitched the idea of a central “major projects office,” a model used in Canada and parts of Asia, which pools scarce expertise to move big infrastructure projects forward quickly.
The former minister also raised questions about whether government ministers had properly handed over office after Ali was sworn in, flagging concerns about state vehicles and other resources still being used. He pointed to technical glitches with airport biometric systems as a sign of a broader issue, technology being rolled out without proper preparation.
For Jordan, these are not small missteps. He believes they reflect deeper problems with how the government is choosing to run the country at a time when decisions carry heavier weight than ever, given the nation’s growing oil wealth.
