One of the more poignant comments from the latest citizens to respond to Stabroek News’s question about the effects of the cost of living, published on Monday, October 23, came from an empty nester, whose wife sells produce from their kitchen garden to supplement their income. Paraphrased, his statement was that if making ends meet was hard for just the two of them, he dreaded to think of how difficult it was for his tenant who has five children. Also telling was the almost afterthought uttered by a mother of two that her family had stopped using greens because the prices were so high.
In the year that this newspaper’s reporters have gone around the country asking that specific question, the resounding answers offered a clear indication of citizens’ ongoing struggle to keep their heads above water, so to speak. Food items, both in the market and supermarket have gone up in tandem with the astronomical increases brought about everywhere else by world events.
However, it is not just food, costs in general have risen. Myriad services, rent, transportation, household supplies, clothing and footwear, furniture, building materials, seeds and fertilisers; the list goes on. Every single sector has seen spiralling prices and fees. To date, the government’s response has been what could be deemed barely incremental increases for public sector workers and welfare recipients. These have scarcely made a dent as more than one person polled for the ‘Cost of Living’ series has remarked, again paraphrased, that salary increases seem to invite vendors to do all they can to take more money from buyers.
International Day for the Eradication of Poverty or ‘End Poverty Day’ was observed on October 17, under the theme: ‘Decent Work and Social Protection: Putting Dignity in Practice for all’. In hailing the day, which can be traced back to an October 1987 rally in Paris – though the United Nations’ official declaration was made in December 1992 – the UN had long since called it a “moral outrage” that millions of people were still living in extreme poverty. It had placed this against the backdrop of the “unprecedented level of economic development, technological means and financial resources” available in the world that ought to be employed towards eradicating poverty.
Today those resources have grown exponentially, but the moral outrage remains. The path to ending poverty continues to be littered with pitfalls such as greed, discrimination, corruption, ignorance and a general lack of care. When climate change and COVID-19 are added to the mix the situation becomes much more dismal. This is despite the fact that some advances have been made in poverty alleviation. What is also true is that not nearly enough has been done and at this point the first Sustainable Development Goal – eradicating extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030 – will not be met.
According to UN estimates, given the current path, nearly 600 million people in the world will still be struggling with extreme poverty in 2030, living on less than US$2.15 a day. For them, the outlook is grim. Furthermore, data from a recent World Bank-UNICEF report has determined that children comprise more than half of those living in extreme poverty and this is not expected to change.
Anyone who erroneously imagines that global poverty figures have nothing to do with the price of bread in Guyana, needs to think again. Respondents in the ‘Cost of Living’ series mentioned above tend to offer past and current price points – they track the cost of items – as well as indicate their weekly food budget. The latter ranges from $5,000 to $15,000. In the most recent column, an employed, single mother with three children spoke of spending between $10,000 and $15,000 per week and still being unable to purchase all that was needed. When converted to US dollars and spread over that family of four, the daily spending on just food is between US$1.70 and US$2.55 per person. Adding other basic necessities immediately places them in the extreme poverty bracket. Not only are there many families in the same economic straits as the one in this example, but there are a lot more who are worse off.
Last week, Senior Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh told an International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco that Guyana’s economy had recorded real economic growth of more than 40 percent on average per annum over the last three years, with medium term growth projected at more than 20 percent. This was detailed in a press release issued by the Ministry of Finance and published in this newspaper.
Economists believe that economic growth is crucial to poverty reduction. However, that seems to work only on paper. The actual average Joes and Janes barely eking out a living are in no way experiencing or benefiting from this economic growth. How can one laud a country’s growth when its most vulnerable citizens are bogged down in poverty?
The World Bank recently reclassified Guyana as a high-income country, based on gross national income which takes cognisance of the so-called ‘oil wealth’ that may never actually trickle down to the ordinary citizen. Meanwhile, incongruously, the same organisation’s Systematic Country Diagnostic for Guyana noted its “legacy of jobless growth, and deep geographic disparities and inequalities”. It recommended that in order for oil revenues to deliver sustainable growth that encompasses the entire populace, there needs to be, among other things, good governance, economic transformation and job creation, and investment in human capital that fully addresses the current geographic inconsistencies.
Simply put, Guyana’s ‘oil rich on paper’ status does not serve its people. This needs to change.