—says lower taxes, price controls should be considered
WIN General Secretary and parliamentarian Odessa Primus has accused the government of being disconnected from the financial hardship facing working households and has called for lower taxes on essential items and consideration of price controls.
“The government needs to find a way to cushion the hardships faced by the people. Whether it is lower taxes on more items or removing it from some. Even price control should be given serious consideration and implemented soonest,” Primus told Kiskadee Watch.
“The government can’t be this disconnected from the reality of the people of this country,” she said.
“At this point I don’t know if it is that they don’t know the hardships faced by the people or if it is that they don’t care enough to do something about it. Either way, it signals the progressively horrible situation that we are in,” she added.
Her comments followed an informal social-media exercise in which she asked whether salaries were keeping pace with the cost of living. Primus said approximately 50 persons responded within an hour, with the overwhelming majority saying no.
She acknowledged that the exercise was neither scientific nor nationally representative but said the speed and consistency of the responses provided a snapshot of household sentiment.
According to Primus, respondents said their salaries were being quickly consumed by food, rent, utilities, transportation, healthcare and the cost of educating their children.
Several reported living from pay cheque to pay cheque, cutting non-essential expenditure and struggling to meet expenses even where two persons in the household were earning.
Primus said the responses suggested that the issue extended beyond unemployment and low wages and raised questions about whether household income was keeping pace with expenditure.
She noted that respondents spoke mainly about surviving from one month to the next rather than saving, investing, purchasing homes or building wealth.
The comments also pointed to limited capacity to manage emergencies, she said, since a medical expense, school project or household repair could disrupt a family’s budget when most of its income had already been committed to routine bills.
Parents appeared to be carrying a particularly heavy burden, Primus said, pointing to the cost of transportation, lessons, school projects, examinations and other expenses associated with raising children.
She also highlighted the psychological impact of the situation, saying respondents used words such as “stress,” “depression,” “struggling” and “uncertainty” when describing their financial circumstances.
Primus argued that the comments exposed a gap between Guyana’s rapid economic growth and the way prosperity was being experienced at the household level.
“If people are working, sometimes with two incomes in a household, yet still feel unable to comfortably meet basic expenses, how much is economic growth translating into improved purchasing power and quality of life for ordinary citizens?” she asked.
President Ali had also linked a proposed local oil refinery to reducing Guyana’s exposure to imported fuel costs. It also reported on the President’s focus on bottled water prices, including his assertion that water which costs between $16 and $36 to bottle was sometimes being retailed for approximately $100.
Kiskadee Watch reported that President Irfaan Ali, at his recent press conference, acknowledged that prices remained high despite tax reductions, subsidies, cash grants and support for farmers. He said Guyana could not rely on grants alone to address the problem and called for a “multidimensional” response targeting the underlying costs of food, transportation, energy and other necessities.
Ali pointed to the disparity between prices paid to farmers and those charged to consumers and suggested expanding farmers’ markets to reduce distribution costs and mark-ups. He also said consumption patterns had changed, with more Guyanese shopping at supermarkets rather than traditional markets, eating out more frequently and cooking less at home.
Those changes, he argued, were contributing to household expenditure. Ali nevertheless acknowledged that imported fuel and other external factors were also contributing to domestic prices and said the government was examining the establishment of a refinery to reduce Guyana’s exposure to the cost of imported petroleum products.
For more than three years, Stabroek News chronicled the impact of rising prices through its weekly series, “How the Cost of Living is Affecting People,” which reached 171 instalments and included interviews with residents across the country.
Respondents repeatedly complained that increases in wages and pensions were being overtaken by the cost of groceries, cooking gas, electricity, transportation and other necessities. Many said they had reduced the quantity or variety of food purchased, taken on additional work, relied on relatives or overseas assistance and abandoned attempts to save.
In Part 170 of the series residents of Edderton, West Coast Berbice, complained about increases in the prices of rice, sugar, meat, cooking gas and animal feed. One pensioner said his household sometimes ate only once per day, while a cane harvester said he lived from pay cheque to pay cheque and had little to place in savings.
Primus said the wider issue was no longer simply whether persons were employed or receiving salary increases, but whether working households retained enough money after meeting basic expenses to save, withstand emergencies and improve their quality of life.
Discussion