A prominent Guyanese businessman and media commentator has accused the public of misplaced priorities, arguing that outrage over President Irfaan Ali's private farming operation has crowded out scrutiny of far larger questions surrounding the country's oil wealth.

Glenn Lall, speaking in a recent social media commentary, said Guyanese citizens have become preoccupied with the President's roughly 150-acre estate, which includes cattle, sheep, poultry, aquaculture and cash crop operations. The farm has drawn sustained public attention in recent weeks, with some critics calling for a commission of inquiry into how the land was acquired and developed. Lall did not dispute the legitimacy of that scrutiny outright, but said it had become disproportionate when set against the scale of the country's natural resource dealings.

His central complaint concerns the terms under which Guyana's offshore oil is produced. He noted that the country continues to receive a two per cent royalty from ExxonMobil under the Stabroek Block Production Sharing Agreement, a figure that has drawn criticism from economists and opposition figures since the deal was signed. Lall argued that Guyanese citizens have no independent means of verifying how much oil is extracted each day, nor of checking whether ExxonMobil's reported operating expenses, which reduce the state's share of profit oil, are accurate. He said this lack of visibility ought to provoke more public anger than it currently does.

He extended the point to land itself. While critics have pressed the President over how he obtained his farm, Lall said comparatively little attention has been paid to the much larger tracts controlled by international oil operators. He put ExxonMobil's holdings at around 6.6 million acres, and said the companies behind the Kaieteur and Canje blocks control a further 4.8 million acres between them. He also referenced the sale of stakes in Guyanese oil blocks by consortium partners, who he said acquired their interests without cost and later sold portions for billions of US dollars, at a time when Guyana itself was struggling to meet debt obligations. These figures were presented by Lall as part of his argument and have not been independently verified by this newspaper.

Lall's argument was not confined to oil. He said the same absence of public pressure applies to gold, diamonds, bauxite, timber, manganese and uranium, sectors in which he argued foreign companies operate with little domestic accountability. He suggested this reflected a wider pattern in which resource extraction proceeds with limited public engagement, regardless of the sector involved.

His appeal was for Guyanese to redirect the intensity currently focused on the President's farm toward the terms of the country's resource agreements. He suggested that renegotiation, or at minimum stronger enforcement of existing terms, should command the same level of public demand as the scrutiny applied to Ali's land holdings.

Lall closed his commentary by framing the stakes in generational terms. He said history would eventually record Guyana's offshore discovery as among the largest in the world, but argued the more significant question was whether the resulting wealth reduced poverty within the country or primarily benefited foreign interests. That outcome, he said, remains undetermined and will be shaped by the priorities Guyanese choose to pursue now.

The claims and figures cited above originate with Lall and have not been put to ExxonMobil, the Government of Guyana or the Ministry of Natural Resources for response.