Most Guyanese are not paid adequately. Often, when we compare remunerations here to places outside our country—even if we only examine the remunerations in other Caribbean territories—significant disparities are revealed. It is the reason many graduates leave. It is the reason many of our best have left. It is the reason some of us have been advised to leave. It is the reason some of us are encouraged to have our children live and study abroad. Low wages and salaries are not the only reasons, but how one is salaried largely affects one’s quality of living.
Those who stay, the ones who are here for love of country and the ones who are here because they have no place else to go, some of them may believe that they have no voice and no choice but to settle. Others have no fight or no will to sound their voices; many may be oblivious to the fact that they deserve better or may have lost the will to challenge the system. Whether we accept it or not, we all are not equal; not because we are not all born equal, but the spectrum on which we exist establishes clear distinctions between the “haves” and the “have nots” and somewhere in the middle, somewhere near the poorer end of the spectrum, is where most of our people exist.