The Ministry of Housing’s Central Housing and Planning Authority confirmed on Friday that it has formally engaged INTERPOL, the FBI, and CARICOM IMPACS in its effort to locate contractor Omar Malik and his company DreamVu Homes, following his failure to complete Young Professional Homes for which families paid and for which he was contracted and compensated. The Ministry issued a press release outlining a sequence of steps it says it took, including public notices published in August 2025 urging Malik to report and settle outstanding financial obligations. When he did not comply, formal reports were submitted to the Guyana Police Force. After Malik left the jurisdiction, the Ministry’s Enforcement and Compliance Department escalated the matter to international agencies.
The Ministry described its actions as an extensive, multi-agency legal framework and pushed back firmly against critics, dismissing concerns as politically motivated rhetoric. What it did not do, and what the public is owed, is answer the questions that matter most.
When were the first complaints made against Omar Malik and DreamVu Homes? The Ministry’s statement references notices issued in August 2025, but residents in Prospect, East Bank Demerara were already reporting substandard work on young professional homes as far back as August 2023, with one resident confirming he had filed multiple complaints with ministerial offices and the CH&PA Projects Department dating to December 2022 and January 2023, all of which he said fell on deaf ears. If complaints were on record as early as late 2022 and throughout 2023, why did the Ministry wait until August 2025 to issue public notices? That is a gap of nearly three years between the first documented complaints and the first public action. What happened in that interval? Who received those complaints, who reviewed them, and who decided no escalation was warranted? Kaieteur News
When did Omar Malik leave Guyana? The Ministry’s statement does not say. It states only that after he left the jurisdiction, international agencies were engaged. This sequencing raises a critical question: did the authorities know Malik was still in the country during the period between the filing of formal police reports and his departure? If so, why was he not summoned for questioning? Why was no immigration hold sought? In jurisdictions with functioning accountability systems, a contractor facing formal complaints of financial misconduct, who has collected payments and failed to deliver, would be a flight risk. That designation triggers specific legal responses. There is no public record that any such response was initiated here before Malik boarded a plane.
DreamVu Homes CEO Omar Malik told the Guyana Chronicle in July 2022 that the company came to Guyana having heard about the oil boom and the demand for housing, framing it as a new market entrant still building its name. The CH&PA issued an Expression of Interest for the construction of Young Professional Homes in September 2022, inviting contractors and developers to submit proposals. By that timeline, DreamVu had been operating in Guyana for only a matter of weeks before it was under consideration for a government housing contract. What financial records were examined? What completed projects were verified? What references were checked, and by whom? The CH&PA has not answered these questions. The Ministry’s press release does not address them. The public, including the families who are now homeless and out of pocket, deserves answers. Guyana ChronicleMinistry of Housing
Where is the money? This is the question that will determine whether affected families ever see justice. DreamVu Homes collected payments from homebuyers. Those payments were processed through the Guyanese banking system. Which financial institution or institutions handled those transactions? Were those funds held in Guyana, transferred abroad, or distributed in ways that can be traced and potentially frozen or recovered? The Financial Intelligence Unit has the authority and the mandate to investigate suspicious financial flows. INTERPOL and the FBI, now engaged by the Ministry, have cross-border asset recovery capabilities. But the success of any recovery effort depends on how quickly financial investigators were engaged after the first signs of non-delivery, and whether any asset-tracing orders were sought before Malik left the country. None of this has been disclosed.
This case does not exist in isolation. Questions about due diligence failures were asked of the government in equally direct terms regarding the Wales Gas-to-Energy project, with investigators asking how a company with a shaky and dubious history could have been approved to build key components of Guyana’s most critical development project, and describing those who conducted the due diligence as blind and negligent. A financial review of Lindsayca found that the company submitted the highest bid, lacked relevant experience, and was facing mounting lawsuits at the time it was awarded the US$759 million contract. The government’s response to those revelations was the same as its response to the DreamVu scandal: a claim of process followed, a defence of institutional action, and no personnel accountability. Kaieteur NewsKaieteur News
The pattern is now established and documented. A company enters Guyana, presents itself as capable and credible, is awarded a state contract, collects public or citizen money, fails to perform, and disappears. The government then issues statements, engages international agencies, and waits. What does not happen is an honest accounting of who approved the contract, who ignored early complaints, who allowed the subject to leave the country, and where the money went.
Guyana’s banking system, immigration authorities, police financial crimes unit, and the Financial Intelligence Unit all have roles to play in answering those questions. The public needs to know whether those institutions were activated at the first sign of trouble or only after the contractor was already beyond reach. The Ministry’s press release answers none of this. A press release is not accountability. It is the appearance of accountability. And for the families still waiting for homes they paid for in good faith, the difference is not semantic. It is everything.
SOURCE: Kaieteur News, “Housing Ministry says FBI, INTERPOL on Omar Malik trail,” June 13, 2026
