This week we asked the man and woman in the street what they thought of the 2012 census draft report, which recorded a decrease in the population. Their comments follow:
Interviews and photos by Dacia Whaul
Alice Corbin, self-employed – ‘It is very bad. I think the population decreased because there are no jobs for young people. Single parents want an increase in income to pay their children school expenses, and so they migrate for job opportunities. If the population is to increase, cost of living got to go down.’
Shelly Goodman, vendor – ‘The decrease is terrible. To me, they got to work on the country before people want to stay here. People do not want to live here because they can’t make a living here. The government got to look into this because this country so big and got a lot of potential.’
Brian Chung, self-employed – ‘I think the population decrease is bad. This is a nice country, but certain things need to change. We need tourism to help fix that, before everybody go away. We need jobs and more business to keep people here, because things real hard. They leaving because they have no other option.’
Raymond Cambridge, public servant – ‘I think that the population decrease is not good for Guyana, but it is our reality. They (government) need to create more jobs for citizens and people will not migrate. I think that we would have been more developed by now if those who left this country felt that they had opportunity for a better life.’
Ricardo Grant, public servant – ‘The population decrease is not good. For me, cost of living needs to drop and more jobs for young people need to be created, if we want people to stay. People looking for betterment. Taxes need to come down, look at VAT, it’s too high. Security is another issue that needs to be looked into if people will stay in this country.’
George Burke, senior citizen – ‘I think that the reduction is not good for Guyana or its development. If we want our population to grow, we need to ensure that the laws of this nation are followed by all. We have a lot of crime and nobody wants to live in a society that they don’t feel safe in. We need to get this place in order before we could encourage anyone to come here and live or come back here to live.’
Marilyn Moses, vendor – ‘Well if they got more jobs, then people would not be leaving this country so. More young people would be off the street and have something productive going on for themselves. If there are more jobs then I think people might want to come back and help develop Guyana. Until then the population will only continue to decrease.’
Loretta Narine, businesswoman – ‘Well a population decrease is not good news at all. We need better security and jobs before people stay in this country. People will want to feel safe and know that they have opportunities if they return. We have to deal with the problems first, then people would want to come. Our politicians need to stop fighting, because we want Guyana to get better.’
Mohani Sookdial, pensioner – ‘The decrease is not good for Guyana. I think they [Government] should clean up the place and have more opportunities for young people if they want people to stay. Get rid of the drug dealers so that people would feel safe. Get all the destitute people off the streets and make Georgetown look like the garden city again, if they want the population to grow. And those in parliament need to stop fighting, because we want a better country.’
Kenneth Thom, public servant – ‘The population decrease is sad, but it would not stop happening. We need a new administration that will think of people. We need jobs and togetherness. We have no togetherness, no initiative as a nation. The city needs to be cleaned.’
