Dear Editor,
I would like to draw your attention to the plight of poor people living in oil rich Guyana.
During the Christmas season, taxi drivers were overcharging (even the taxi base) consumers for drops, for example all short drops were between 1,500-2,000 dollars. To go from Stabroek Market to South Ruimveldt cost $3,000-4,500 and if you have to put things inside of their car trunk it is a different money.
In Guyana there are a lot of Chinese supermarkets and the standards vary. Some do not give receipts. In others, when they do give you a receipt, instead of items that you purchased listed, the receipt has a set of codes so you cannot track what you buy. In one instance, somebody bought some items and the cashier told them 3,000 dollars, and when the person asked the cashier what is the price for the items it came up to less. Many times they are also selling a lot of expired items
During the Christmas holidays, as usual the price of goods and vegetables went up but I would like to draw your attention to the butcher stands. A pound of beef went up from 800 per pound to 1,200 hundred dollars per pound, and now you are paying all this money only to get beef that is halfway spoiling.
On old year’s day I went to a butcher stand located outside of Bourda Market to buy 2lbs of fresh beef and 1 pound of salted beef. What I got is 1 pound of bones and 1 pound of stink salted beef. Can you imagine after paying thirty-eight hundred dollars that is what you are getting?
Now the government announced that it is giving each citizen 18 years and older a cash grant of 100, 000 dollars. The pensioners had to wait in long lines (some of them took in sick) from early morning to late afternoon before they can get their money. The teachers too had to line up. I am pretty sure no government or opposition officials had to do that.
This is so disgusting, why is the government treating poor people with such contempt? Don’t we belong to Guyana? Is the money garnered from tax payers and oil theirs to do with like they please and when it suits them (especially when elections time is coming around). Is it for them to offer us a tiny bit so that poor people could be grateful to them and they can win votes?
In closing Editor, I would like to know if Guyana belongs to the government and all the resources that it has.
Yours truly,
Wintress White
Red Thread
