On Wednesday, June 24, 2026, Guyana’s High Court delivered a mixed ruling that finds fault with the Guyana government’s sudden termination of public funding for the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G), while dismissing most of the organization’s core legal claims.
The case, which dates back to a 2023 legal challenge filed by IDPADA-G against the government’s funding cut, centered on the government’s 2022 decision to halt an annual subvention of roughly GY$18 million that the organization had received. When the government cut the funding, it restructured how it allocates resources for programming related to the UN International Decade for People of African Descent, choosing to disburse funds directly to individual community groups instead of routing them through IDPADA-G. The government’s move came amid claims that more than GYD$500 million in prior disbursements had failed to reach a large share of the African Guyanese community that the programs were intended to serve.
In her judgment, then-Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire—who currently serves as Chancellor of the Judiciary—clarified that there was no formal binding contract between the government and IDPADA-G or its affiliated incorporated body for the provision of the subvention, nor was there sufficient evidence to uphold the organization’s claim of a legitimate legal expectation that funding would continue indefinitely. She also ruled that the applicant body that brought the case was not the proper legal entity to file the action, and dismissed all of the organization’s substantive claims for broader legal remedies.
Even so, the justice underscored a clear procedural failure on the part of the government: regardless of the lack of a formal contract or guaranteed long-term funding, the government was required to give IDPADA-G advance formal notice before ending the subvention. As a remedy for this procedural error, George-Wiltshire ordered the government to release all outstanding funding owed to IDPADA-G for the final three months of 2022: October, November, and December.
IDPADA-G CEO Olive Sampson told Demerara Waves Online News that the outstanding funds are urgently needed to settle existing organizational debts, confirming that the organization had relied on the GY$18 million annual subvention to support its operations prior to the funding cut. No order for legal costs was issued, given the court’s finding that the applicant was not the proper party to bring the suit and that the substantive claims lacked merit.