The Special Select Committee of the National Assembly earlier this year invited submissions dealing with the impact of global food price increases. The Guyana Consumers Association submitted recommendations which are recorded below.
1) Competition: The Competition Commission framework is far too elaborate to get off the ground. The Competition Commission needs to get its act in order and begin to stimulate competition.
2) Reduction of Vat Percentage: like most of the population, we feel that a reduction of the VAT to 6% or 8% would restore it to government’s first idea of having a revenue neutral tax.
3) Confronting Global Food Price Increases
i) There should be a joint government/private sector office which will continuously keep import prices of foodstuff under review.
The scope of such review will be worldwide. We would know the lowest prices available worldwide and importers could take advantage of them.
ii) Import substitution for foodstuff should be seriously addressed by government. For example, milk. The steep rises in milk prices have been causing havoc in particular to families with young children and babies. Guyana used to be self-sufficient in milk and this may be an opportunity to resuscitate the milk industry and a pasteurization plant.
Methods of preservation should immediately be taught such as the preservation of green ginger or turmeric or the drying of coriander seeds.
iii) Canning factories should be established to can surplus fruit and grain.
4) The Four Utilities – Water, Electricity, Telecommunication and Public Transport should be made more affordable.
i) Water and electricity are already subsidized and need to be further subsidized, chiefly on an individual basis such as distinctly rebating on one’s personal bill.
ii) Telecommunication: The short and medium-term approach by government in bringing down costs to telecommunication consumers is to encourage the use of modern technology and to protect the suppliers and users of modern technology.
iii) Public Transport should be made to keep its prices affordable by means of the suasion of government authority.
5) Assistance to single-headed households: Single parent families such as a woman with several children or a woman with a baby who cannot work should be assisted
(Note: Government is already giving assistance to single-headed households. Is this assistance adequate?)
6) Teaching people how to utilise money.
7) Medical health care and funeral costs must be addressed.
8) School lunches and school buses: Many parents do not have money to give their children to purchase lunch or to give them packed lunches when they attend school.
Government should reintroduce school lunches.
There are also the senior citizens who need enough money to pay for the necessities of life. We have recently heard of someone dying from starvation.
We do not want to hear of more deaths because of the lack of food.
