Dear Editor,
I write to respond to my recent visit to Guyana and to the poverty analysis conducted by the Center for Global Development. That report found that more than half of Guyana’s population lives below the poverty line, with over 30 percent classified as extremely poor. These figures place Guyana alongside some of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, despite its oil-driven economic surge since 2020.
What I witnessed on the ground in Guyana, clearly confirms that the report is devastatingly accurate. I must respectfully but firmly reject the PPP government’s perpetual self-congratulatory framing of their “biggest budgets ever” as tools for human development. Where is the human development? In Guyana, there is no Child Poverty Strategy with measurable, positive results. After nearly 33 years in power, the PPP has failed to deliver the urgent, comprehensive action this crisis demands.
The government boasts of progress, but have they looked beyond the polished homes of their friends and family? Have they visited Kwakwani and Ituni in Region 10 to truly understand what is happening in those homes? The PPP leadership conveniently ignores that over 30 percent of our people live in extreme poverty, and in most cases, it is a single mother with children who is sinking. This is not human development; it is a damning indictment of the Cabinet’s complacency.
What I witnessed from my last visit four years ago to my current trip, is a deepening crisis in rural Guyana, deep in the villages and away from the public roads. You will not see this poverty from the public road, you have to actually go into the back street where the poor lives.
What I saw is that food insecurity has surged under President Irfaan Ali since 2020, and more families are experiencing real destitution today compared to four years ago. These are not statistics; these are Guyanese lives being destroyed by the PPP government’s inaction.
Consider the case of the man living in a car in Enmore. This matter was brought to the attention of Minister Vindhya Persaud more than six months ago, and no action was taken. It was not until the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Azruddin Mohamed, visited and highlighted this man’s plight that she acted. How can the Minister of Human Services lack empathy for the downtrodden and destitute? Her response suggests a detachment from the very people she is sworn to serve.
This indifference is not an isolated incident but rather a reflection of a ruling cabal that appears more concerned with pomp and ceremony than with the suffering of ordinary Guyanese. President Irfaan Ali and his team continue to underserve disabled people, single mothers, elders, and the working class—many of whom are one day away from endemic and persistent poverty.
What we need is holistic action: ensuring social security provides at least life’s essentials, expanding access to low-cost housing, and protecting single parents, the elderly, and disabled people from financial hardship. Instead, the PPP offers piecemeal measures that fail to address the structural causes of poverty.
The PPP government’s strategy does not meet the urgency of this moment. Until President Ali understands the root causes of poverty, his government cannot deliver a comprehensive, cross-cutting approach to poverty for all affected groups, especially children. Until the PPP wakes up, the majority of Guyanese will continue to suffer, dragged further into deepening hardship as a result of this runaway cost of basic foods. This is not progress. It is failure dressed in political rhetoric.
This is what Irfaan Ali represents; this is what he has to offer—very little support for the poor, while the contracting class and friends and family continue to reap the lion’s share of the biggest budgets ever.
Yours faithfully,
Surujdai Juglall
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