NO one denies that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in severe disruptions to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people all across the world. Guyana has not been spared in this regard.

Guyana’s President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, fully cognisant of this reality, has put in place a range of measures to lessen the impact of this scourge. One such measure was the recent decision taken to reduce freight charges to pre-pandemic levels– that is rates charged before March 2020. The decision to reduce the current charges is effective August 1, 2021.

One immediate consequence of that decision is to put some $4.8B in the pockets of consumers and the business community, compliments of the PPP/C administration. This is in addition to the nearly $60B in terms of cash grants and other forms of tax waivers since the new PPP/C administration came into office a year ago.  Nothing, however, is without some cost. The true economic cost of these concessions is the loss of billions of dollars to the treasury by way of adjustments to custom duties, excise taxes and Value Added Taxes (VAT) on imported goods and so on.

The impact of the pandemic on the global economy is tremendous. And even though it is not possible to fully estimate the full impact of the pandemic on global trade and the world economy, there is widespread agreement among economists that should the current trend continue, most of the major economies will see their economies shrink by about 2.9 per cent over the 2020 levels. To put this number in perspective, global economy, which was estimated at $US87.5 trillion in 2019, will see a decline of roughly US$3.94 trillion in loss of economic output.

Guyana, like so many other countries, is not spared the dire economic fallout due to the continuing spread of the virus. The country was forced to implement partial lockdown of the economy, especially in the tourism and hospitality sectors which impacted on the business community. Many jobs were lost as a consequence and the government had to step in to mitigate the full impact of the pandemic by way of several policy interventions such as the COVID-19 cash grant and now the reduction of freight charges.

Freight charges constitute a significant part of total cost of goods and services and the reduction of such charges will most likely see an overall drop in the prices of consumer items, especially imported items. The tendency has been for some business places to deny consumers the full benefits resulting from policy interventions by the government. Such actions cannot be condoned nor justified. The consumers are invariably the ones who are made to carry the full burden of any increases due to unforeseen developments in world trade and any interventions made by the government is not only welcome but must be passed down to the intended beneficiaries.

The PPP/C administration must be commended for the several measures taken to cushion the adverse impact of the pandemic on the lives and well-being of the Guyanese people. This cannot be said for people in several other parts of the world, especially in the developing world where many of the adjustment burdens are passed down to the wider population. Many countries are still grappling with getting adequate supplies of the COVID-19 vaccines to protect their populations from the virus. The statistics showed that only 1.1 per cent of the low income countries have received at least one dose of the vaccines, according to a recent report by the United Nations World population.

One sure way to bring an end to the current situation is to vaccinate a critical mass of the world’s population. And while Guyana is way ahead of most countries, we are still a long way off from a global standpoint. This is why we have to be thankful to the current PPP/C administration for making the resources available to immunise the full adult population.

Regrettably, there are some in our midst who either fail to recognise the dangers posed to the Guyanese people by the COVID-19-pandemic or are being deliberately mischievous. Instead of providing a helping hand, they are doing everything possible to sow the seeds of doubt and mistrust among sections of the population as to the efficacy and health benefits of the vaccination programme aggressively pursued by the PPP/C administration.