The World Bank recently announced Guyana is a high-income country given the exploitation, primarily of our oil and gas resource, which has seen double-digits growth rate. In spite of this touted wealth, that has placed the country among the world’s fastest growing economies, real income for ordinary workers is equivalent to starvation wages, approximately half the population live on less than G$1200 per day, unemployment remains high, and many are leaving for greener pastures.
Workers continue to give of their labour which is being devalued daily as inflation rises. There is little or no relief offered to help them in a structured, fair and non-discriminatory manner. Some are getting the hog of it all, as others are given none. We ought not to be fooled by the figures they put out that inflation has not risen by much and the country is now considered high-income.
Ask the home makers. Ask the minibus and taxi drivers. Ask the shopkeeper. Ask the pensioners. Ask the worker. Guyana’s new high-income status means nothing to them because their lives continue to be one of drudgery.
Today, I asked workers: How much can you buy with your dollar now, compared to what you were able to buy a year ago? This is not partisan politics; this is facing the reality of working-class economics. The working poor- which is what we have been relegated to- do not need an economist to tell them about inflation. They can see through any government’s deceit and phony figures.
All the high-income status means is that communities will no longer get grants associated with low and middle-income countries. For instance, some NGOs, who used to get grants from international agencies for poverty alleviation, will no longer receive these grants because Guyana is no longer considered poor. Where the PPP regime continues to manage the nation’s resources in a discriminatory manner and as a political weapon, the ordinary man will suffer more unless they are prepared to forfeit their right to freedom of association and fall in line with the PPP.
A political environment that seeks to bring some of us to our knees with no care or concern for rights, the rule of law and good governance, will not improve. Further, all the measures to determine whether a country is high-income are not, and do not use the same measurements in determining the Human Development Index (HD1). The HDI identifies the state of the citizenry that will see respect for human rights, poverty alleviation that highlights such issues as education, health, housing, sanitation, access to food and potable water, and so forth.
There is nothing really for the ordinary man to feel delighted over. We are living in the PPP Animal Farm- where some are more equal than some and we will continue along this path unless we mobilise to bring about change in our conditions of work and standard of living.
We are living in a land with shrinking freedoms and human dignity. All the officials of the government are interested in is how to get their hands on the oil money and not about the working poor, youth, pensioners and other vulnerable groups in our midst.
For instance, the National Insurance Scheme (NIS)- our money- is in financial trouble due to years of mismanagement. Pensioners are a very vulnerable segment of any population. Many are struggling in spite of NIS earnings as a result of spiraling cost of living and having no other source of income or support systems. The dignity and rights of society’s seniors are under threat by conditions not created by them but by reckless governance.
As we look around, oil wealth is making no difference. Many of our people continue to see migration as their best option and hope is gradually lost, and economic wealth acquisition and survival seems only for the fittest of all. And by fittest, I mean those who can turn a blind eye to the atrocity committed in our country by man against man. Those who can walk by and drive by and ignore the poverty on every street corner, those who ignore the homeless.
All Guyana’s people, red, black, brown and others, are entitled to equal and equitable access to opportunities, the protection of rights, the rule of law and good governance. But we must stand up and demand what’s justly ours. Do not be fooled. The state of Guyana today, whilst considered a high-income economy, is a country in turmoil, held hostage by greed and avarice.
