(Kaieteur News) – In the corridors of power in Georgetown, some names are whispered with fear, others with reverence, and one—Su Zhirong—with the distinct, lingering scent of a national scandal that this administration is desperate to bury.VP advisory services
While the government preaches about “transparency” to international investors and the Guyanese public, the 2022 VICE News exposé, “Guyana For Sale,” pulled back the curtain on a murky world where national resources are allegedly traded like commodities in private living rooms. At the center of this web sat Su Zhirong—the businessman, the “tenant,” and the alleged bridge between foreign capital and the highest office in the land.
The world watched in shock as undercover cameras captured Su Zhirong—thinking he was speaking to a group of Chinese investors—explaining the mechanics of doing business in Guyana. It wasn’t about competitive bidding or technical merit; according to Su, it was about the “service fee.”
In the viral undercover footage, Su was heard claiming that he could “get anything done” because of his intimate proximity to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo. See full interview with Vice News reporter here: (Su/ bribery from 1:05:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFHF8IpQFnk
Su essentially described a system where he would act as the middleman, collecting “fees” to ensure that state contracts and land concessions were “fast-tracked.” Most damning was Su’s assertion that the “boss”—a clear reference to the VP—took the lion’s share of these payments, while he, Su, took a smaller cut for his “troubles.”Political biography book
Proximity and Plausible Deniability
When the scandal broke, the Vice President admitted to knowing Su, even acknowledging that the Chinese national was a tenant in one of his properties. Yet, he claimed total ignorance of Su’s extracurricular activities.
But this begs a barrage of critical questions for the VP: How does a foreign national, residing in a property owned by the Second Citizen of the country, represent himself as a “bagman” for the state for years without detection? If Su was merely a “rogue tenant,” why was he granted such unfettered access to the VP’s private residence, where undercover journalists witnessed the two interacting? Is it standard government policy for “tenants” to broker billion-dollar infrastructure deals in the VP’s living room?
Tropical Construction: The Su Family’s New Frontier
While Su Zhirong remains a ghost, his family’s influence is very much alive and well—cemented in the very foundation of the US$2 billion Gas-to-Energy project.
Investigative records have identified Tropical Construction & Building Supplies Inc. (TIN: 150-633-608) as a prominent civil contractor for Phase One of the project. But who owns this entity? Official company registry records obtained and reviewed by this publication provide the smoking gun.
Share Certificate Number 01, stamped by the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority of Demerara on June 3, 2025, explicitly confirms that the beneficial ownership of the company rests with none other than Su Zhirong’s daughter, Jiayi Su. The document officially certifies Jiayi Su as the owner of 510,000 ordinary shares of the corporation.Energy project financing
Extraordinary award
But how did Tropical Construction even get its foot in the door? Impeccable sources close to the project have revealed a highly irregular and deeply troubling maneuver. Tropical Construction was never included in the initial bid documents presented to the GTE Task Force. They were entirely absent from the original technical evaluations. Instead, they were conveniently slipped in through the backdoor—handed the lucrative civil works portfolio directly by the primary contractors, Lindsayca-CH4.
Today, this entity continues to render multi-million-dollar services to Lindsayca-CH4 on the Gas-to-Energy site, effectively acting as a massive, unaccountable sub-contractor completely shielded from public procurement scrutiny.
Despite the father’s “disappearance” and the radioactive cloud of bribery allegations hanging over the family name, Jiayi Su was somehow able to secure this critical role in the nation’s most expensive infrastructure gamble. And the results have been as predictable as they are catastrophic.
Sources deeply embedded within the civil works at the Wales site have confidentially expressed their utter bewilderment to this publication regarding the arrangement. According to these insiders, the hiring of the Su-linked entity defied all engineering and logistical logic. In fact, they report that from the exact moment Tropical Construction was brought on board, the pace of the project actually slowed down, grinding to an agonizing crawl. Yet, paradoxically, the money just kept flowing out unabated.Government transparency tools
Delays without penalty
The civil works at Wales are currently the primary drivers of massive delays and ballooning cost overruns. Yet, Tropical Construction appears to enjoy a “seamless immunity.” While other contractors face penalties for delays, Jiayi Su’s entity remains untouched, shielded from the fiscal consequences that should follow such gross underperformance.
This begs a new, even more disturbing set of questions for the architects of the GTE project:
How was a company majority-owned by Jiayi Su, the daughter of a questionable “middleman,” ever got cleared by the GTE Task Force?
Did Winston Brassington, as the head of the project, overlook the glaring nepotism to ensure the “service fee” machinery continued to hum?
Original link posted by Kaieteur News on April 26, 2026
