CPI increase at 1.6%, surely the Finance Ministry jests

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 1.6% at mid-year when compared to the index at the end of 2023 (SN, September 1).  It is not spiritually tranquil to begin September and a new school year with what has every indication of the blindfolded, if not the mentally retarded.  Whoever at the Ministry of Finance came up with that 1.6% rise in CPI is either daydreaming or hallucinating.  They can’t be this braindead to the harsh, palpable realities of rising prices across Guyana.  In summary, it has not been marginal or incremental, but a continual explosion that has been detrimental to the wellbeing of the man in the street and the family staring at a less than filling plate.

Forget about what Guyanese used to call ‘bam-bye’, they are just trying to get by.  But 1.6% percent it is, which tells me that there is a world class jester over at the Ministry of Finance.  Somebody over there must be about what locals label ‘laff story.’  It is a cruel joke, that 1.6% CPI rise, one through which I think that the PPP Government is laughing at Guyanese.

Now I have a simple question for the honorable Dr. Ashni K. Singh, the minister that has some responsibility with things to do with finance.  The question for Dr. Singh is fair: since there is this wonderfully healthy level of the CPI increase at 1.6%, then why are so many Guyanese in constant dire need of CPR, sir?  To wit, where food prices are concerned, and how it sucks the breath out of them, and leaves them dangerously oxygen deprived.

The grueling reality in today’s Guyana of skyrocketing GDP and skyrocketing prices is that very few food items, if any, are going up by a handful of dollars.  I speak not of imported linguini nor angel hair pasta, but the basics of bagee and bora, for a start.  I urge all citizens, regardless of their partisan leanings, to check for themselves, if they don’t already know how much the prices of basic food items are running away from them.

A perpetually partially hungry parent with children in the identical condition is free to decide whether his or her battles with food prices take second place to partisan political callings.  Only food prices, and basic items, it should be noticed, are where I have concentrated the full bore of my attention today, given this abomination of 1.6% increase in CPI.  Medicines, transportation, and clothing have their contributions to make to CPI.  But when someone faces the daily grind of a gnawing stomach, and famished children, then there is the luxury (perhaps) of foregoing or delaying the other elements of CPI.

I think that the people compiling these CPI numbers know full well what they are doing.  It is how they get to where they get as a final official number, and why.  Dr. Ashni Singh is a smart enough Guyanese and practitioner in the field of numbers to know that the 1.6% CPI number has to be an obscenity thrown in the face of every suffering Guyanese.  Yet, there is persistence from his PPP Government with these out of the world concoctions.

What is going into that basket of consumer goods?  From where is it being bought, or studied and surveyed?  Is it a basket of goods that has a hidden trapdoor, where the pricier food components are thoughtfully and conveniently thrown overboard?  Numbers can be massaged any way that is desired, so that the kind of message (statistical percentage) is arrived at, then disseminated.  But a man of the caliber of Dr. Singh should know that that 1.6% CPI stat flies in the face of every reality, every condition, and every punishment in Guyana, as experienced by too many Guyanese.

From my own experience with food prices, even an increase of 11.6% in CPI would qualify as rank undercounting and, hence, understatement.  If the CPI increase is truly 1.6%, even 5.6%, then the laments about cost-of-living pain, and that the government should do something, would have no merit, no traction.  But it is not, and cannot be, 1.6%.

No Guyanese needs to be an economics or statistics student to know that the increase in CPI (whatever that means to them) is not 1.6%.  All they need to do is walk with $5,000 to the municipal market or supermarket this week, and return next week, with that same amount, and see how many of the same food items they can purchase.  That is the weight of their basket of goods, that is their CPI.  To ensure that all understand the simple, common-sense thrusts of my thinking and the Guyanese experience, absorb this and deal with it.

What $5000 bought in food items last week does not buy $4,500 only this week.  It is much less, and that is not 1.6% by any measure from any book, from any university, including Wharton or Kellogg, from any skillful (perhaps clever is better) statistical operator.  Note that the comparison I made is from one week to the succeeding one, and the pain of prices is that stark.  Now, should I get adventurous and glance back to December 2023, then the price dam would burst.

Regrettably, CPI increases have now become this government love affair with prestidigitation.  Conjure a number, wave it at Guyanese.  Then give them a rocking chair to cushion their anguish.