Corruption and inflation: imagination or real conditions 

Aug 09, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – Dare to peak about corruption and cost-of-living in this country and government gets bent out of shape, loses its thin coating of cool. Products of overblown imagination, according to the PPP Government, even rancid political partisanship of no-good intent.  I still insist that corruption and cost-of-living are real conditions in this country, and both are at crippling proportions.

GHK Lall

There are many Guyanese, who think similarly.  What is it with the two national calamities, contagious viruses, I may add?  Who has it right, the government and leaders and supporters running a hostile, often slashing, defence?  Or could it be that conscientious and outspoken citizens are on the right side of bitter truths in both instances?  Then there are those who speak not to the partisan, nor what could be remotely construed as objectionable (unwelcomed) protest, but of the piercing state of their own existence.

How do they feature, what is the significance of the nonpolitical articulations of their experiences?  These are experiences that convey their own inarguable, undeniable, situations relative to corruption and inflation.  I touch upon inflation today.

The first thing to note is that I use cost-of-living and inflation somewhat interchangeably.  I think that there is room for taking such a liberty.  For what is cost-of-living if not about prices: when citizens start paying attention to cost-of-living, speaking about it means there is a concern.  When the people feeling cost-of-living squeezes speak more often about such, and more urgently, it means there is a serious problem.  Price increases, price pains, prices pressures, which together lead to price paralysis.  And what is a loose, unscientific definition of inflation if not about prices and how they relentlessly march upward within a known area for a length of time.  As with some marches, the earth gets trampled, scorched, laid waste.  It could be by policy, or the consequences of practice.  First, the PPP Government said that cost-of-living is not a crisis; its leaders did in the earlier days.  Then, an anthem had this repetitive sound and at increasing volumes: look at how much has been done.

My position is that there was some merit in both postures.  But due to the continuing and deepening nature of the first (the price condition is not a crisis), that argument weakened, and lost some traction. Its strength diminished considerably; I assert, and as will be supported shortly.  Second, what the government did, is doing, has been the equivalent of surrendering ground to inflation’s aggressive and assaultive presence.  Personally, I believe that the PPP Government has done too little, subsidies and other invisibles/tangibles properly considered.  Incidentally, I am speaking almost exclusively about food.  Not clothing, not medicine, not housing, and not anything else in the slew of other mandatory components of life.  Food only.  There is a third government posture that is so unworldly, that it is out of this world.  That is, food inflation stands at 3.8%.  If that is only partially accurate, then I would be Nat King Cole crooning, with a countrywide chorus of joyful Guyanese humming and applauding.  Instead of asking, like the Merry men, “tell me weh yuh get dah money from, there is this preference placed before the PPP Government: tell abee weh ayuh geh dah numbah (3.8%) frum…  Yeah, it has been that kind of political song and dance locally.

Simplicity itself emphasizes that the government’s inflation vision and policy are based on the idea that putting less money into the hands of the people chains and restricts the feared inflation monster (frees up funds for infrastructure; [it is more fun filled]).  The more citizens spend (if they have cash in hand), the less they get for food items.  With prices bleeding Guyanese, something went wrong during that political surgery. Food prices continue to gush, with many Guyanese haemorrhaging.  Citizens are ravaged and savaged. They are not PNC Guyanese crying about how bad the PPP Government is. Nor are they repugnant (and despised) critics pointing gleefully at food prices and screaming that the country and its people are in terrible shape because of prices rising and rising and pummeling the people.

The ones doing the talking about cost of living (crushing food prices) are ordinary Guyanese honestly telling theirstories of daily, weekly, agony lived with continuously, as part of their widening reality.  Mothers, fathers, pensioners, unemployed workers, industrious workers, two job workers, villagers, city dwellers, are all sharing their market and food and table shortfalls.  If anyone wants a poll of the pulse on food prices, I recommend SN’s weekly cost-of-living revelations, now at Book 87.  It has been an anthology of gothic price horrors.  This is the harsh reality of not a few but many in Guyana.  Guyana the richest, but also Guyana the [food] poorest.  The government says that it has tamed the inflation beast.  But food prices are where they are, and official food inflation levels are in the opposite direction.  Somebody has it wrong.  I will take the side of the people. It is not a matter of imagination, or partisan political manipulation, but a real harrowing domestic condition.  Ordinary Guyanese are themselves saying so. My remedy is simple: manage the millions better: less for contractors, more for citizens.  Less with cash that corrupts officials and politicos.  Less with envelopes, more through a package of incentives via the available tech systems (tax, banks, computer trails).  Take the hands out of the handout processes.  Takeout the political masterminds and supporting cast also.  Coming up, that other curse and cancer called corruption.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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