Dear Editor,
It would be surprising, if not shocking, if the PPP and its cast of the unhearing, unseeing, and unfeeling (unthinking also) are enamoured by SN’s continuing series of the impact of the high cost-of-living. It is what I am thankful for, what I keep visiting, and on the frontlines, because of the pain of our people in a time of glistening prosperity. Those voicing their anxieties and fears in SN’s series speak for me, for I also know what it was to have to pass basic things by, o without, both here, and in another land of plenty. Because I have not forgotten those roots, I understand their plights, identify with their woes and worries, and willingly do what I can to maintain visibility, attention, and resonance to the precarious position of Guyanese poor, Guyanese struggling.
So what does Part 10 in SN’s series “How the cost of living is hitting people” had to say? How hard is the hitting, the punishing? What is new, more poignant? Of the 12 Guyanese braving circumstances and sharing, 8 directly referenced, hinted, and called for some form of government intervention, through a price control mechanism. They think and feel that such is the helplessness of their circumstances, how much they are subject to the whims of what they can’t control, that they are insistent that some degree of official control be implemented and enforced.
One contributor said that vendors raise their prices when they learn that there are increases in pensions and pay. Is it vendors, or middlemen, or the producers, who are this astute, this unerringly opportunistic at maiming their fellow citizens? One thing for sure is that higher prices (almost weekly) for basics are not figments of the imagination. It is simply business. When the stomach gnaws torturously, it is neither figure of speech nor malicious misrepresentation, but what is all too real and alarming in today’s Guyana. Price controls are not the solution I would support, and I do not foresee the PPP coming down hard on the wholesale and retail produce circle since that is their own people. I think some of the gougers have to be publicly shamed, and the media has to do some undercover work and trace those ripping off their fellows. Price controls usually result in artificial shortages, and the inevitable flourishing black-market. What is conceived as a remedy ends up being deadly. Not just higher prices, but scant availability since the slick have gone underground with their products. The one saving grace in this is that the underlying products are perishables, with a short shelf and stall life. If there is no open market selling, then what is withheld can be self-destructing.
I think that some form of political pressure, the moral suasion of persistent jawboning, could be picked up by the media and citizen-shoppers to deliver a pungent message to those taking advantage of those who can least afford their callous tricks and expensive exploits. Guyanese have to declare and wage war against gougers and those bent on profiteering, regardless of the harsh consequences. There is too much passivity, the regular docility writ large. With all the roads constructed (easier, more efficient, less costly (?) modes of transporting goods, and all the agricultural assistance, it is enlightening that rising food prices is the result. The more some get, they more they want, take, if not seize.
From almost all the voices in the SN series, I heard the cry: we need help (seedlings, livestock, and so on), and they are looking at government. I counted close to half of the dozen interviewed being from the vendor ranks themselves, and they are complaining about the severe pinches they are feeling, and about their own fellow sellers, in this instance those involved in greens and vegetables, among other necessities. It takes a lot for parting of company to occur. But this is the jarring reality in a land and time of economic beauty. I checked some of the numbers coming from the interviewees, and the percentage increases are staggering. Where does this level off, come to halt? One woman said it pithily, but so accurately: what goes up, doesn’t ever come down. Numerically, we are going up with oil money, budget money, and allocated money. Separately, there is that other Guyanese reality: it is of Guyanese who can’t cope going down from ever-rising prices, and overall cost of living. I think that it should be renamed as cost of surviving since that’s where many Guyanese hover.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall