Guyana’s mounting cost-of-living pressures continue to define the daily lives of ordinary citizens despite the country earning billions from oil since production began in 2019. In a searing commentary, columnist GHK Lall argues that a “sizable demographic… so far down the national oil ladder… think and feel they are at the bottom of the world,” as basic necessities become increasingly out of reach for working families.
Government receipts from petroleum production have climbed sharply, with Guyana earning an estimated US$6.2 billion in oil revenues to date, including US$2.2 billion in profit oil and US$348 million in royalties in 2024 alone. But Lall suggests that this national windfall has done little to ease the daily struggle faced by citizens “at the bottom of the oil (economic) world of Guyana.” For him, the central indicator of national wellbeing remains “the amount of food and food-related basics [people] can afford to buy.”
In describing the widespread distress, Lall writes, “Cost of living is very hard. Cost of living is crippling. Cost of living is that constant family member that wears down and leaves weeping in his or her wake. Like drug addiction, it is draining and damaging.”
Stabroek News’ ongoing reporting from communities across the country—from North Timehri to Mibicuri North Black Bush Polder—has revealed a consistent refrain, which Lall characterises as “the same wail of anguish: cost of living is hurting, hurting, hurting….”
The commentary lands against the backdrop of troubling national poverty data. Recent World Bank estimates that 48.4% of Guyanese were living in poverty using a benchmark of US$5.50 per day, and has noted that no more recent nationally representative poverty figures exist. Local economists and analysts believe the real number is even higher, arguing that outdated and inconsistent data-gathering techniques understate the extent of deprivation—an assessment that aligns with the lived experiences described by Lall’s column.
For Lall, one of the most striking features of the crisis is its universality. “If there is one thing on which working class Guyanese, minimum wage Guyanese workers, and Guyanese pension recipients can agree on, it is that the cost of living is an undiscriminating torturer,” he writes. Across Guyanese of Indian, African, and Indigenous descent, he finds “none of the usual fierce, prejudiced partisanship” when the topic is daily survival.
He emphasises that those bearing the weight of rising prices are not interested in political narratives or official pronouncements about future relief. “Their minds are firmly and immovably fixed on money,” he writes. “Their primary interest is in having something more in their hands, so that they can have a little something more to put in their pot. All else is fluff.”
Guyana’s oil revenues continue to surge, yet Lall’s column confronts a striking contradiction. Guyana is a nation earning billions from petroleum but still contains a population in which nearly half—or possibly more—struggle with poverty and the crushing cost of basic living. His assessment is blunt and unforgiving, a reminder that national wealth is not translating into household relief. “Cost of living in Guyana is that ruff,” he concludes.
