More than a dozen truck drivers and owners staged a public protest on Wednesday at the roundabout of the Bharrat Jagdeo Demerara River Bridge, demanding government intervention against what they describe as an uneven playing field that is driving Guyanese operators out of work and into financial hardship.
The protesters allege that foreign companies, particularly Chinese firms operating in Guyana, have been undercutting local rates, accessing government duty-free concessions, and using trucks imported for public road works to compete in the private haulage market. The combination of these factors, they say, has left many local truck owners with vehicles parked for months and no income to show for it.
One affected truck owner, identified as S. Ahmed, described the rate undercutting in concrete terms. He said that on routes where the going rate for a load of sand to Ogle is approximately $60,000, foreign operators are offering the same service for $50,000 or even $45,000, making it impossible for local truckers to compete without operating at a loss. Ahmed stated that his truck has been parked for months and that he considers the situation fundamentally unfair to Guyanese operators who do not benefit from the same concessions.
Another trucker, Anil, said he has been without steady work since January and that assignments are becoming increasingly rare. He noted that Chinese companies appear to control multiple trucking operations and have access to their own sand pits, giving them a level of vertical integration that local operators cannot match. He warned that if the situation is not addressed, local truckers will have no viable path forward.
Several other protesters echoed these sentiments, describing a sector in which fuel costs are rising, work is disappearing, and the financial pressure is becoming unsustainable. One trucker stated that his employer’s vehicles remain parked while business flows entirely to foreign-operated fleets.
This is not the first time the issue has come to a head. In May 2025, truck drivers in the mining town of Linden staged two days of protests over similar concerns about the foreign takeover of trucking and related businesses. In response to that protest, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill stated that Chinese companies were not receiving duty-free concessions for their trucks, clarifying that the only duty-free allowance applied to equipment used inside a Chinese-owned quarry. He pledged at the time that the government would not allow Guyanese truckers to be sidelined when competing for contracts linked to Chinese-operated quarries, particularly following complaints about access to lifting work at Arisaru Mountain in Region Ten.
Despite those assurances, Wednesday’s protest suggests little has changed on the ground. Local truckers remain dissatisfied and have renewed calls for the government to place limits on the number of trucks foreign companies are permitted to import. One driver posed the issue starkly, questioning what Guyanese operators are supposed to do with their vehicles if a foreign company can arrive overnight with hundreds of additional trucks and drivers.
Among the political figures who visited the protest line were leader of the Vigilant Political Action Committee Dorwain Bess and Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed. Mohamed criticised the government for what he described as excessive closeness with foreign operators and called for immediate intervention to protect local livelihoods.
Minister Edghill previously acknowledged that rate competition exists in the market but declined to elaborate, reiterating that Guyana is open for business while adding that the government would not stand by and allow Guyanese to be disadvantaged in that environment.
SOURCE: Kaieteur News, “Foreign companies eating up everything,” May 7, 2026
