…and the country is in freefall
After refusing to accept word from the business community that the exchange rate of the Guyana dollar was in freefall — after the banks couldn’t handle demand for foreign currency, primarily the US dollar — Guyanese woke up to discover that the Gy $205 to US$1 that had prevailed up to the beginning of the year had been increased to $230 to US$1!! With the Government still burying its head in its nether orifice, most stakeholders expect this freefall to continue.
The question is: What does this mean for the Guyanese people? The answer is actually very simple: It’ll be simply disastrous for the ordinary citizen. With us having to import practically everything value-added, and now paying more Guyana dollars for the US we have to buy to pay for the imports, the importer will have to pass on the increase — now at 15% — to customers. And it’s not just the direct importers. Even in things we produce, like rice, there is a significant amount of imported inputs — like pesticides, fertilisers, diesel, packaging etc.
Those customers — in case we need to be reminded — have just been hit with a 14% VAT on everything, including the kitchen sink. And this is not to mention all the other taxes that have been introduced. When you consider that 20,000 Government workers at various levels have gotten minimal raises; 17,000 sugar workers not only didn’t get a raise, but 8,000 of their jobs are on the line; and the cascading effects of this economic collapse are affecting even the middle class, you may get a glimmer of what’s ahead for us as a nation. And it ain’t pretty!
So what can be done? Right off the bat, the Government — in the form of Minister of Finance Winston Jordan — must free its head from this enveloping dark chamber and smell the coffee in the real economy. In matters economic, we now know — to our cost after the 2008 economic crash — that all the economic formulae ain’t worth a bucket of warm spit; and it all has to do with the psychological mood of the players — which at this time is the business community from the supply side, and the people from the demand side.
The Government must also know that the exchange rate is not a speculator-driven indicator, as in some of the financially developed economies. Here it is pushed by real supply and demand for real goods emanating in the real economy. This Government has to get off its antagonistic high horse towards the business community, start stimulating the economy, and quit counting the profits the businesses will make.
This is how the cookie crumbles in a private-enterprise economy. And Jordan: take a salary cut!
…AND THE MINIONS ARE THUMBING THEIR NOSES
Deputy Mayor Sherod Duncan asked Town Clerk Royston King to “do the honourable thing” and resign for the atrocities he’s committed in City Governance. Duncan didn’t actually say “atrocities”, because he’s obviously too naïve, since he thinks King even KNOWS what “the honourable thing” is; which he would not know even if it crept up and bit him on his rather expansive posterior!
What would King know about honour when he doled out so many contracts to his family members and friends over the past two years? Think Merriman’s Mall; or coaching the newbie PNC City Councillor on how to stymie the requested suspension of the SCS parking meter contract.
Thing is, King doesn’t even have the honour that we were told exists among thieves. This is an official who’s looking out for number one with such fierce intensity he’ll walk over his mother’s grave – and probably has already done so with gay abandon!
Think how he treated the vendors!
…AND RICE GOT BOILED
Mountain Moses strained, and produced a mouse with the 15,000 tonne Mexican paddy contract we were just allowed to BID for!!
Don’t even ask the price – since we had to drop our pants after the 9% tariff!!
