–President Ali says rising prices must be viewed alongside shifts as economy grows
— Gov’t initiatives, relief measures keeping pressure off Guyanese households

WHILE households globally face higher prices, President Dr Irfaan Ali has stated that Guyanese families have been shielded from these adverse impacts as government policies have led to the reduction of taxes, expanded social support and cost-of-living relief measures, including lower utilities and fuel prices.
President Ali, during a recent press engagement with five female career journalists along with students, said that the nature of the economy needs to be looked at in its totality, not in isolation, citing several factors such as the changes in consumption patterns and their effects.
Despite significant global fiscal pressures, the government has not removed any of the relief measures that were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In fact, Guyanese families would be under higher financial pressures if the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration had not removed the more than 200 taxes and onerous measures introduced by the former APNU+AFC government while they were in government from 2015 to 2020.
If that was the present-day reality, hundreds of billions would have been extracted from the ordinary Guyanese and according to President Ali, “If we did not remove the tax on fuel, hundreds of billions of dollars from your pockets would have been used to finance fuel. If we did not remove the tolls on the bridges, hundreds of millions of dollars from Guyanese pockets would have gone to tolls.”
The reductions in loan rates were also highlighted by Dr Ali, who noted that this has resulted in Guyanese citizens being able to keep hundreds of millions in their pockets that would have otherwise gone to service the interest on their loans.
Direct financial support and subsidies extended by the government to ordinary citizens, including the newborn cash grant, are another example of support, the President noted.
Farmers have also benefitted from numerous measures, including fertiliser subsidies, removal of rates for drainage and irrigation (D&I) charges and expansion of D&I services, which, according to the President, has saved them from flooding, increased productivity and provided a subsidy on every bag of paddy produced.
For instance, in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) alone, farmers are now saving $1.6 billion in D&I charges and land rental fees because of the PPP/C’s deliberate and strategic policies and initiatives.
Back in 2017, the then A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) coalition government significantly increased the D&I charges in the Mahaica/Mahaicony area. This plunged small and medium-scale farmers into distress as they were forced to pay between $3500 -$15,000 in land rental and D&I charges.
Other initiatives to cushion cost of living include and assist families include textbooks to school children, the school feeding programme, the incoming transportation grant for children, the uniform grant, no increase in the cost of electricity; the reduction in the cost of water by 5 per cent; the removal of Value-Added Tax (VAT) on electricity and water charges, and subsidies to local fisherfolk.
“All of those are resources that would have been extracted from your pockets if the government had not provided these incentives. That is money that saved the population directly,” President Ali said.
Outside of these measures and initiatives, the President turned his attention to other sectors, including mining, which has benefitted from hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives, although gold prices increased.
The President stated, “So the cost of living has benefitted from policies that directly target it. Just imagine if we did not have these policies.”
CONSUMPTION PATTERNS
On inflation, President Ali said that rising prices cannot be examined in isolation from changing consumption patterns in Guyana’s growing economy, such as the increased indulgence in imported food goods.
“There are certain things that we import and our consumption patterns have changed tremendously. If we go around this table and I ask every single person here how many mangoes they ate versus how many apples they ate during the holiday, I’m sure most people ate more apples than mangoes, and we’re dumping mangoes now because the season has massive production. If we ask how many persons ate fish versus beef and steak, we will see changes in consumption patterns. I’ve had discussions with vendors in the market, and you all know this: as economies grow, spending patterns change, consumption patterns change,” he said.
He further noted that he also conducted an analysis where he took a basket of goods purchased from the local markets and compared it to one supermarket.
The price differential was “enormous” in every basket of goods, he said, adding: “If you are importing some inflation and people are filling their basket from imported goods with that inflation, there’s very little you can do about that.”
The President did note that the government is addressing cost-of-living in a structural way—in consumption patterns, in creating higher value goods from your local production, where your factors of production and your cost of production are more controlled.
The president went on to say, “So we have to understand the nature of the economy. More people are eating out today than three years ago and there is nothing wrong with that because we have to be aspirational. But we cannot look at the issue of cost of living in isolation from all of these structural issues.
“If you used to walk to go to the church, you know, in Leonora on Fridays, everybody walks to the mosque, on Sundays everybody walks to church, it’s one village, everybody walking to the church. Today, everybody is driving. Consumption patterns. Why is it that we have an entire vehicle registration series completed in less than three months when it used to take 10 years? Consumption patterns—all of that is linked to the cost of living…..”