President Irfaan Ali’s transformative success story driving more challenges

Guyana’s major challenge today is a “paradox of performance”. President Irfaan Ali and his Government have steered Guyana onto a path of remarkable transformation. This, naturally, has created expectations which have outpaced the capacity of the country to meet. While acknowledging progress, citizens are not in the mood for the inconvenience caused by rapid growth.
The World Bank, the IMF, the IDB, and other credible sources have documented the rapid transformation taking place in Guyana. The President Irfaan Ali-led Government has been the steward of one of the most remarkable country-wide development and transformation stories in the last 50 years anywhere in the world. Not only has Guyana’s GDP been the fastest-growing economy in the world in the last five years, but the country’s physical infrastructure and social development have been totally transformed.
Take, for instance, vehicle ownership. Guyana is presently importing more than 10,000 vehicles every eight weeks. Vehicle ownership in Guyana is commonplace, no longer just a luxury enjoyed by a few families. Vehicle ownership shows economic and social growth because people buy cars, trucks, and motorbikes when they earn more money and improve their daily lives. Guyana is a great example of this correlation.
Another good indicator of a country’s rapid economic and social development is home ownership. In Guyana, the average age of home ownership has shifted dramatically. In the 1990s, few could have afforded their own homes, and the average age of the few who became new owners was more than 50 years old. In 2025, the average age of new homeowners changed to the twenties. Mortgage for new homes totalled about $90 billion in 2021. In 2025, the total mortgage for new homes significantly increased to over $200 billion.
Successes like these have led to rising expectations in the country. Citizens expect more; they have become impatient, and the more successful President Irfaan Ali and his Government are, the more the expectations and the demands from the citizens. But for the Government to keep pace with people’s expectations, there are challenges outside of the control of Governments. This is called the “paradox of performance”. Some say the Government is paying a terrible price for success. Instead of praise for driving rapid development, the Government earns criticism.
For example, the Government is transforming the transportation infrastructure. New highways, bridges and an interconnected transportation network are changing how Guyana looks. Every street in every community is being upgraded. One would think that such rapid transformation will earn President Irfaan Ali and his Government universal and unconditional praise.
But, while acknowledging progress, citizens blame the Government for traffic jams caused by a combination of more vehicles on the road and by more and more construction to upgrade highways, roads and bridges. It is the “paradox of performance”; the more the Government does, the more people’s demands grow. Expectations for improved roads and more bridges are natural, but the inconvenience of too many vehicles on the road and traffic disturbances caused by construction make citizens angry.
Expectations do not consider a country’s capacity. Do we have enough qualified contractors? Do we have enough labour? These are real constraints. Citizens are not in the mood to accept excuses. They want more and rapid development but will not accept that expectations are matched with genuine constraints. This is exactly where Guyana is at this time. Important infrastructural projects almost routinely exceed construction deadlines because an ambitious pace of development confronts constraints amidst unrealistic expectations.
Take the electricity paradox. More homes, more businesses, more modernisation, and a blazing pace of development demand more electricity. In 2021, peak demand was 145 MW. In 2026, peak demand has risen beyond 234 MW. From less than 100 GWhs in the 1990s, Guyana’s electricity generation in 2026 is about 2000 GWhs and is expected to grow to about 11,000 GWhs by 2030. This growth is driven by expanding industrial and commercial activities. But even as the Government increases generation, the distribution system cannot keep pace. The success in increasing generation, therefore, has been masked by frustration among citizens as generation capacity fails to keep up with citizens’ expectations.
In a few months, with the gas-to-energy project coming on stream, a significant increase in generation will be achieved, and this will dramatically reduce electricity costs in the country by 50 per cent. Yet, increased generation does not guarantee that blackouts will not occur. It will take time to fully develop the distribution system and to develop an efficient staff to maintain the grid.
We see the same impatience with housing. In 2026, it is expected that the Government will distribute in excess of 15,000 new house lots. Let the enormity of this achievement sink in for a minute. Between 2015 and 2020, far fewer than 1000 house lots were distributed. In addition, it is expected that 40,000 new homes would be constructed in 2026. But the application for house lots, far from diminishing, is increasing every year. People are no longer waiting.
The average age of the applicants is 23. It is expected that in 2026 there will be almost 100,000 new applicants for house lots. Clearly, a large number of applicants will experience a long waiting period. Far from acknowledging the great achievement in housing by the President Ali-led Government, those who must wait for their house lots blame the Government. This is yet another example of the “paradox of performance”.
President Irfaan Ali and his Government’s toughest challenge today is their own development success. A new highway produces more development and, therefore, more traffic; higher incomes create more demand for better healthcare and more education; housing expansion requires utilities and drainage; and new businesses need more skilled workers. A successful development agenda does not necessarily increase political goodwill. Often it engenders greater expectation and more criticism.