Dear Editor,
The cost of living has risen in Guyana. So has the minimum wage.
Raising the minimum wage has pushed up the cost of living in Guyana as businesses needed to increase prices to pay for increases in wages.
While I favour another rise in minimum wages I have to accept that it will again push up the cost of living.
Maybe a solution would be to reduce the Personal Income Tax to 20% thereby giving working people more disposable income which feeds into the Guyanese economy boosting productivity.
With Guyana being awash with oil money, the personal income tax can be reduced.
Let’s face up to facts: with the Government revenue from oil increasing the Government will just be looking for more ways to spend money for “development”. Nothing wrong with that just as long as proper feasibility studies are done to ensure we get the best value for money.
Back to cost of living: cost of living is a function of peoples spending and how people spend their hard earned monies. I believe that the cost of living can be contained by increasing the productivity per person. Which means an efficiency drive and more people working. We cannot do much about the worldwide rise in oil prices which affects transportation costs (I understand that the Government has tackled this by reducing taxation). But, we can boost job creation which is where the development bank comes in which is the way to go as long as it is professional and does not lend to cronies.
Sincerely,
Sean Ori
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