If there is any Guyanese who can feel good when things are so bad, so hard, with other Guyanese, I would like to know them. They may be from the political army, or private sector stalwarts, or believers or pretenders, and I still would want to believe that such callous, depravedly indifferent Guyanese do not exist. SN’s 153rd cri de Coeur called cost-of-living provides the foundation, a glimpse, of how daily surviving has become a war for citizens scattered across this country. It is a war that the stretched and strained in Guyana lose more bitterly daily. When words like “hard” and “bad” are uttered repeatedly to convey the tortured ordeal of existence, then something has gone awry in a country on top of the world.
If oil prices haven’t started their decline yet, hopefully not precipitous, then I cringe in thinking of poor Guyanese, when that time arrives. What could be their fate then? With less coming to them, and prices killing them? May oil prices stay in deep slumber; stir restlessly, but still held in the throes of sleep. Meanwhile, the Stats Bureau came around to acknowledging that with food prices now at 7.5%, inflation is not moving in a favorable direction for consumers. No longer at the low levels that they were claimed to be. It is helpful that stats are closing in on reality. It would be best in governmental honesty, however, to admit that the 7.5% is still not a reflection of food price realities in markets and supermarkets.
Listen to the people of Cove and John, who gave the best testimony, bared their hearts that are tearing, their circumstances that are draining, with painful words dripping, gushing from them. “Cost of living is hard, hard in everything, everything.” Regardless of the volume of words at our disposal, that lament cannot be surpassed for its terrible poignancy. Mrs. Jasmattie Dindial, a housewife grieving at the state in which she is forced to live. If there is one Guyanese who should know her condition, it is Mrs. Dindial. Next, “the cost of living is very hard because the money you working for can’t maintain a family of five.” It takes a brave man to admit to what Mr. Harripaul Singh, a 59-year-old security guard of Cove and John resident disclosed to SN. When a breadwinner’s situation is so grim that he must speak publicly, the dignity that he harbored inside fades, pride falls by the wayside. According to Mr. Singh, “well, the government will have to come in. they need to raise people salary because security work is now $2,300 a day, (or, $69,000 monthly, if he works 30 days a month).” Obviously, this struggling husband, father, provider is a minimum wage worker in the private sector. And there is that abomination, when the people at the top celebrates balls with champagne, while those at the bottom are scrambling to find a grasshopper to add nutrition to their meal. One segment of Guyana (the superrich) partying, while about half of Guyana punishing. Crying out their agony publicly. Begging for any kind of relief that could be thrown their way. There is begging on the streets and by the stoplights. Then, there is this broader, deeper, and less visible environment where many Guyanese have their hearts in the open, and their hopes outstretched.
Now try one more, pensioner Romawattie Ramgobin. “Man abbie can’t mek am. Abbie ah get pension and pension ah too little bit.” Minister Vindya: was that heard? Drs. Ali and Jagdeo and Singh: there’s the real Guyana with authentically suffering Guyanese. And this in the savage, tragic irony of a country with almost unmatched GDP, and where Exxon boasts of Guyana being “world-class” and a ‘gem’ and a one-of-a-kind find in the history of offshore oil. What do all those glorious stats from the World Bank and IMF and IDB mean? Or those from the Bureau of Statistics right here that has to hide what real food inflation is, while Guyanese are reduced to crawling on their hands and knees? Inhaling deeply and holding their breath, so as to minimize the gnawing pangs of need and hunger? Almost everyone of those 10 villagers in Cove and John used the word “hard” or “bad” to describe their circumstances, conditions. They are neither propagandists nor apologists. They are people in pain.
This is what demands the most immediate addressing by leaders with the power to make a difference. Rather than jetting across the compass, and delivering speeches insulting to the paper on which they are written. And the ink spent to present those farces. Guyanese are hungry and sick of being hungry. Do something Drs. Ali, Jagdeo, Singh, and Persaud. Show some humanity. Have the decency to take some shame from faces.
