Dear Editor
The People’s Development Movement is asking Guyanese to pay much more attention to what is taking place in the country. If not, we will find ourselves living as second-class citizens, as it could get worse for our future generations to live with three square meals. Although we are labeled an oil-rich country, we are in danger of falling into the resource curse which is speeding to get every cent from us as the cost of living is climbing to the sky. From what we are seeing, our independence as a nation, and our natural resources are slipping away into the hands of the wealthy, while many who claim to be high in moral standards sit back and turn their faces away.
Editor, while PDM can understand the magnitude of the political destruction the last elections caused, the present non-cooperation by government and opposition is leaving our people confused about which direction the economy is going and what should be done to deal with the many problems we face. My advice to our fellow citizens is not to give up the fight for all Guyanese to get what is rightfully their own, we must remember that we can exercise at any time, peoples’ power through peaceful protest to demand that politicians look after the interest of our people.
The present high cost of living, causes PDM to look back at the coalition’s 2019 budget of $300.7 billion with just $270 billion in revenue expected, to come in, which meant that we had a total of $30.7 billion deficit. When we look at the present PPP budget for 2023, which stands at a total of 781.9 billion dollars, due to the oil money coming in, we’ve come to realize that the present budget is around 160% more than the coalition 2019 budget. This will give anyone the expectation that we should have better-paid wages for our public servants, better incentives, and grants because the 2023 budget is $481. 2 billion more than the coalition 2019 budget.
The present revenue that comes in from oil directly and indirectly in Guyana, has been put into thousands of projects as though we are trying to build Rome in a day while pushing slave labour wages into the hands of our people. This will just keep them alive to work the next day because the money which public servants are receiving in wages has lost its value due to inflation as if a pickpocket has passed their way. Editor, while giving out thousands of contracts is good, because it can create thousands of short-term jobs ranging from $5,000 to $12,000 a day for sub-contracted workers, the majority of the backbone workers who have the responsibility for the day-to-day management of our country, such as our public servants and local governments authorities workers, will continue to live below the poverty line having monthly wages diminish in two weeks.
Editor, the government has badly handled the cost of living. This is because its main focus is on infrastructure development and other developmental work to show that they can do better than the coalition government, which had a budget of just $300.7 billion to spend. Any government that has $481.2 billion more added to a 2019 budget of $300.7 billion will do better on projects and other development if the money is spent wisely, however, in all of our development work, we must pay attention to the lively hood of our citizens. PDM is calling on the government to pay our public servants, and local government authorities staff better wages, increasing it by 25 percent. To prevent inflation, put systems in place to prevent profiteering, even if some price control mechanisms have to be put in place to prevent the unjust profiteers who increase the price of goods and services two times the amount of the increase in wages.
Sincerely,
Michael Carrington
Leader
PDM
