Drug import permits in Guyana move online: the GA-FDD single window

What changed

In a press advisory dated 9 October 2025 and posted on its website on 11 May 2026, the Government Analyst – Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD) told manufacturers and importers that its services are now available through Guyana's Electronic Single Window (ESW) for trade, deployed through the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce¹². The advisory lists 15 services, among them¹:

• Import permit applications for drugs, cosmetics, medical devices and food.
• Licences to manufacture or repackage drugs, cosmetics, medical devices and food.
• Drug submission application – marketing authorisation, the registration step a medicine needs before legal sale.
• Applications to import narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.
• Free Sale/Health Certificates, Certificates of Pharmaceutical Product and certificates of destruction or condemnation.

The advisory says the platform is meant "to streamline and simplify international trade" with a single system that will "reduce cross-border processing time" and increase "efficiency, transparency, and predictability" for traders, customs brokers and government agencies. Importers in the miscellaneous and veterinary drug categories still file on paper¹.

How the single window works

The ESW is run with the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), which lists the GA-FDD among the participating agencies; traders and brokers log in with GRA-issued credentials, and existing ASYCUDA World users can reuse theirs⁴. Guyana Times reported on 21 May 2026 that since the system was implemented in January 2025 almost 7,500 applications had been submitted and more than 6,500 approvals processed⁵. Trade Minister Susan Rodrigues said traders "are now able to submit applications from the comfort of their offices", and the ministry said licences and approvals can now be processed in less than 24 hours between agencies, against the 2020 World Bank figure of about 84 hours of border compliance for imports⁵.

A separate GRA notice, "New Procedures For Importing Food and Drugs", gives priority to consignments the GA-FDD monitors. Importers hand the GA-FDD the original and a copy of the Free Sale Certificate before the goods arrive; the GA-FDD stamps them, the copy is attached in ASYCUDA World, and release follows once a GA-FDD representative verifies it³.

The law behind the paperwork

The digital forms sit on an old legal base. Under section 22 of the Food and Drugs Act, Chapter 34:03, an inspector may examine any customs entry of drugs, take samples, and hold the goods from the importer until the analyst reports; if the sale would contravene the Act, the drug "shall not be admitted in Guyana"⁶. Section 32(2) bars importing a drug unless it conforms to the law of the country where it was made and carries a certificate to that effect⁶; in practice the GRA procedure collects a Free Sale Certificate for GA-FDD-monitored consignments³. The GA-FDD's position is that all drugs must be registered with it before they can be legally sold, with directions for use in English⁷.

Enforcement happens after the border as well. In May 2022 GA-FDD inspectors removed foreign-labelled, unregistered drugs from several Georgetown pharmacies and a private hospital, confiscating 84 boxes and 526 tablets of products that included Anafranil, Flomax, Diamicron, Voltaren and Avodart⁷. Section 21 of the Act lets inspectors enter premises, take samples, copy records and seize any article they reasonably believe breaches the Act⁶. The single window does not change those powers; it changes how a lawful importer gets a permit and a marketing authorisation in the first place¹.

Why it matters for physicians

A faster, traceable legal route matters because the alternative is the informal one. In 2024 the GA-FDD warned that falsified batches of Ozempic (semaglutide), a product it said was not registered in Guyana, might possibly be on the local market⁸. WHO had traced those batches to Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States and warned they could contain no active ingredient or an undeclared one such as insulin¹². PAHO warned in March 2026 that growing demand for GLP-1 drugs may encourage their sale through unofficial channels, including the internet and social media¹³. WHO estimates that at least 1 in 10 medicines in low- and middle-income countries is substandard or falsified⁹.

The marketing authorisation queue is also where new products enter. In May 2026 Health Minister Frank Anthony said a company manufacturing Ozempic had applied for registration in Guyana, that its dossier was being processed by the Food and Drug Department, and that a "generic version of Ozempic" could be on the local market in about two months¹¹. And registration is only the start: at a July 2026 PAHO mission, the Minister stressed that safety must be monitored throughout a product's life cycle, and Guyana began building a post-market surveillance system¹⁰.