After promising, but failing, to really contain the cost-of-living crisis in this country, President Irfaan Ali chose a different route last week when addressing the issue. He turned it around on consumers.
Speaking at a press conference last Tuesday, the President posited that changing shopping and eating habits, supermarket mark-ups and imported inflation were among the reasons prices have risen. He said more Guyanese were shopping in supermarkets instead of traditional markets and eating at restaurants rather than cooking at home. This narrative appeared to come out of nowhere. The President produced no economic data to substantiate his claims, making his comments less an explanation of the cost-of-living crisis and more akin to gaslighting.
Gaslighting, in its broadest sense, involves causing people to question their own perception of reality. When citizens say their housing, groceries, meals, transportation and other necessities have become unaffordable, telling them that they are the problem because they are spending too much in supermarkets or eating out too often is gaslighting them.
It is a fact that consumer behaviour tends to change as a society becomes more affluent, urbanised and modernised. In today’s world supermarkets and restaurants offer convenience and there is absolutely no reason why Guyanese should not take advantage of them. The woman buying a bag of groceries is not necessarily paying more because she has suddenly developed an extravagant taste for supermarkets. The family eating out is not necessarily experiencing financial pressure because it has abandoned the kitchen for restaurants.
There is also a certain irony in asking citizens to return to traditional markets while government policy and economic development have helped to transform the way people live and shop. Convenience, refrigeration, air-conditioning, extended opening hours and modern retailing are not uniquely Guyanese extravagances. They are features of economic development.
Why should eating at a restaurant be held up as evidence of irresponsible household behaviour? The question is not whether Guyanese have changed their consumption habits. Rather, it is whether their incomes are keeping pace with the cost of the lives they are now expected to live.
It is also worth noting here that those hit hardest by the rising cost of living are hardly the citizens one would find regularly shopping at a city supermarket or dining at swanky restaurants. So turning the issue back on them is unhelpful and does nothing to explain why ordinary Guyanese are finding it increasingly difficult to stretch their incomes to cover basic necessities.
The President can no doubt legitimately point to measures the government has introduced over the years, including VAT relief on household electricity and water, subsidies, agricultural support, the removal of certain taxes and fees, cash grants and other social programmes. While those measures deserve to be acknowledged, other sticking points remain, like the exorbitant cost of land for housing, high prices of homes and extortionate rents.
Further, the government’s own data demonstrates that there is a problem. According to the Bureau of Statistics, the Georgetown Consumer Price Index rose by 3.5 per cent in the 12 months to January 2026, while food prices increased by 6.7 per cent. Vegetables and vegetable products rose by 4.2 per cent in January alone, while prepared meals and refreshments increased by 1.8 per cent. By May, the overall index had risen by 2.4 per cent in a single month.
Perhaps President Ali was on slightly stronger ground when he spoke about imported inflation and Guyana’s vulnerability to international energy and commodity prices. But recognising those external pressures does not absolve the government of the responsibility of addressing the domestic consequences. Nor does pointing to supermarket mark-ups.
If retailers are indeed imposing “exorbitant” margins on food produced by Guyanese farmers, then that is a matter for government scrutiny and action. It is not an argument for telling consumers to change their habits. If a farmer sells plantains at one price and consumers pay multiples of that price further along the supply chain, the obvious question is what happens between the farm and the supermarket.
The President’s suggestion of permanent farmers’ markets could be worthwhile. Giving farmers more direct access to consumers could reduce some intermediary costs and provide consumers with cheaper alternatives. But it should complement, not substitute for, a serious examination of the country’s food-distribution system.
Can food be produced more cheaply and reliably? Can transportation and distribution costs be reduced? Are middlemen and retailers operating with reasonable margins? Is there sufficient competition? Are consumers adequately protected against price gouging? Can the government improve storage, refrigeration and agricultural infrastructure? Can energy security reduce the vulnerability of producers and consumers to international price shocks? These are the questions that matter.
Guyana’s oil wealth has raised expectations. Citizens understandably expect that the country’s unprecedented revenues will translate into an improved standard of living. They see billions being spent on roads, bridges, housing, energy, infrastructure and other projects. Yet economic growth means little to the citizen who arrives at the supermarket checkout and discovers that his/her salary no longer buys what it used to. This is the disconnect the government needs to confront.
The government must also demonstrate that it understands what people are actually experiencing and that its policies are designed to address the cause of the problems, not merely explain them away.
Most importantly, the President should have resisted the temptation to make citizens feel responsible for an economic problem that is considerably larger than their shopping habits.
People know when their money is not going as far as it once did. They do not need to be told that they are imagining it.
What they need is a President and a government prepared to acknowledge the problem without qualification, confront the issues that contribute to it, and use the country’s newfound wealth to make everyday life genuinely more affordable. That is not something that can be achieved merely by way of government handouts, which may provide temporary relief, but are no substitute for policies that address the underlying causes of high prices. It is time to stop talking about what could be and act to lift ordinary Guyanese out of the misery of poverty.
Discussion