Dear Editor,
The cost-of-living is unconscionable; it is driving poor Guyanese into deliriums and hallucinations. To feed themselves in a proper manner has become a daily ordeal. It is what just should not be. Not with what this country has in its hands; not with the monies managed by the PPP Government. As SN continues to part 43 of its revealing and piercing cost-of-living series, I promise to continue taking the pain of the poor in Guyana and give it prominence before political leaders who avert their eyes, and harden their hearts. The objective is to jar them out of their smug complacencies, to redirect their attention to what they prefer is neither seen nor heard. If they have never paused and listened before, they should to the anxieties coming out of D’Urban Street and Campbellville.
Look at the latest development. The PPP Government just made another withdrawal, which is the equivalent of more billions of Guyana dollars from the oil fund that is the property of the people. It is the essence of simple reasoning that some percentage of those billions should be set aside to assist those who speak to their hurts before SN’s scribes and photographers. These are Kodak moments of a particularly memorable kind. The more that is withdrawn from New York, the bigger slice of it should be earmarked for those who grapple futilely with a cost-of-living regime that roughs them up and strips them to the marrow of their strength, self-respect. I would be the first to race out of the starting gate to hail and to applaud. Rather grimly and poignantly, no such opportunity has been given.
When there have been two record breaking national budgets in successive years, debt ceiling increases, and geysers of Guyana dollars flooding into the local economy, I think that there should have been, and could have been, more for the hobbling and struggling than has been done in the sum of measures delivered. It would not be political philanthropy or leadership magnanimity. It would be the care and compassion that are made possible by the gush of resources within the grasp. Again, I say this: that a little sliver shaved off the capital projects (infrastructure) portion of budgets does not bring public works projects to a juddering halt, for such a sliver would be too minimal and negligible in the overall multi (hundred) billion-dollar picture. Almost half of this year’s budget is new money for infrastructure in some configuration and construction. And no significant percent of new (new) money for the elderly, the needy, and the Guyanese below the middle going crazy from cost-of-living poundings.
The political cuteness of fusing what was already there (old numbers) to what is now handed out (new allocations) conveys that the first objective is not to make the lives of dragging Guyanese easier, but to make the PPP Government look shiny and for the people. It would be helpful if Drs. Ali, Jagdeo, and Singh all take the time to enlighten the Guyanese people as to why the PPP’s vaunted “national development priorities” vision and program are so low on the human poverty index scale. So low on the human relief index when it doesn’t have to be. There is a time for politics, but there must always be time for the people, especially those who can’t make it in this glorious Oil Atlantis. Also, there is a season for political and leadership propaganda, and it doesn’t have to be unending.
When leaders make it their duty to care for the least in society, and commit to comfort them with the assets in the bank, then there is governance and more. There is some semblance of economic justice, of singular political soundness. The President travels the world over, and rightly points to the jewels in Guyanese crown. I think he could rise to the ranks of a genuine nobleman when he remembers that the bottom half of Guyana is sheathed in running sores and scars from the ferocious daily battles fought with cost-of-living demons. Guyanese are scared. Guyanese are disillusioned. Guyanese are disgruntled. By God’s grace, I can manage, yet I relate to all those things that my fellow citizens live with, and which haunt their weakened spirits. Perhaps, I should be president. Or Vice President of Oil.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
