Stabroek News’s (SN) 154th chapter in its unfinished book titled, “How the Cost of Living is affecting people” is a public secret that is shared week after week. From Rosignol, West Coast Berbice to Timehri, East Bank Demerara and, I daresay, most points in between, cost-of-living is inflicting the equivalent of Chinese water torture on poorer Guyanese. Drip. Drip. Drip. It is a mystery that is not a mystery, thanks to the revelations that come weekly in the center pages in SN that reads like a Gothic horror. A fellow citizen from Rosignol tendered what was one of grimmest snapshots of the impact of cost of living, and the havoc that it wreaks on locals, be they pensioner, minimum wage worker, bottom feeder, low-level public service operator, or small-time independent contractor. Listen to this fellow say it in words that would make the dean of any English Language department flinch. If a dean, I grapple with what the Bureau of Stats officers, Finance folks, and Social Security people do when they absorb his words.
“Cost of living? Dah ah difficult question you ask deh. You used to go with $30,000 to the store or shop, now you have to go with $100,000 to store or shop.” In a nutshell, there is the story that is a tragedy in oil rich Guyana. If there’s any statistical expert at the Bank of Guyana, or the Bureau of Statistics or the Ministry of Finance, that wish to challenge that suffering villager from Rosignol, step up, please. The stage is clear. Because from $30K to $100K is not a 2.9% or 3.1% increase, with food inside or calculated separately. Run the food numbers, and ancillaries such as cooking gas, anyhow that pleases, and from $30k to $100k could win the Nobel Prize for cost of living stat. Quarter over quarter, half-year over half-year, or year over year, and cost of living, focusing on food prices alone and increases, are not and cannot be in those low single-digit percentages bandied about by the government. Frankly, the public servants responsible for those eye-catching food inflation stats (and those demanding such of them) should all be extradited. To the Ukraine, not the U.S. or the UK. Consider what follows.
From $30k to $100k seems like an increase that is in the couple of hundred percent category. Real-life, real people, real food prices. Any arguments, anybody? Oh, and one more: real punishment and real anguish. I have a recommendation for the government stats people, those who trot out those farcical, insulting food inflation numbers. Stop importing basic food items from Mars, and start buying here at the corner shop, the ‘Big Market’, the Bourda Market, and the friendly well-stocked neighborhood supermarket. The language barrier is lower, while profits are skyrocketing. It’s a different kind of demand and supply. Since SN can present and repeat the hurts of Guyanese 154 times, then I demand my right to say the same thing a mere four or five times. How do some Guyanese, reportedly somewhere between 300,000 to 400,000 out of the 800,000 population live? From where do they get the courage to face the new day? Then the next one that promises to be worse. We have heard about people who cannot afford to buy basic food items. But, there is even worse: those who know what it is to live in a nation where starvation conditions trap too many.
Apparently, the government has been reading SN’s chapters all the time, and absorbing the soul-savaging screams of citizens. There was a cash grant check before, and there is going to be one in December just in time for the Xmas Season, and make everybody forget their tribulations. Straight into the bank account, to tidy over Guyanese hurting from cost of living in Linden to Lima Sands, in Crabwood Creek to Monkey Mountain. Very considerate, I say. As for timely, the upcoming cash grant is long overdue; but better late than never. Everybody is going to get, have a nice holiday, to echo VP Jagdeo. The national budget will cater to the rest, the slew of relief measures mentioned by Pres. Ali. Now most Guyanese at the bottom of the ladder have started watching the clock, commenced their countdown, to the cash grant, as though it is approaching midnight on New Year’s Eve, but without the revelry. Me, I am looking to collecting and spread some seasonal joy.
Finally, I noticed that SN had the bottom half of the inspiring mid-year report from the Central Bank right next to hardscrabble, depressing cost of living laments from the villagers of Rosignol. It could be the accident of placement. Or some of that regular mischief from SN of which ruling politicians complain bitterly.
