Commend Govt for addressing high cost of living

Dear Editor,
Everywhere I travel to conduct opinion polling, public complain about high prices. Prices are indeed very high with many basic items unaffordable for most consumers. For the past two years, Guyanese have been forced to spend double if not more, as they claim and is supported by market prices, on normal food and energy budget and particularly on imported goods. The high price of goods is mostly an externally created artificial problem unrelated to the Government of Guyana. High cost of imported goods results in higher cost of goods (including agricultural produce) at home.
The cause of the domestically rapidly rising prices of goods has nothing to do with the Government. It is related to the Ukraine War, natural disasters (flooding in Guyana), shipping transportation costs as well as bottlenecks that result in shortages, and energy (fuel and gas) prices. All have ripple effects on the economy. Scarcity of goods results in higher prices. Food, petroleum, gas, and fertilisers are all affected by the war resulting in relative scarcity. The demand for construction materials results in higher prices.
The Government has done as much as it could decrease the high cost of living, to lower prices – subsidising or supporting farming and horticulture with fertiliser and herbicide assistance and seeds, lowering duties on imports, cutting taxes on fuel, doling out various kinds of grants to all sections of society, compensating people for flood losses. The Government has also lowered income taxes so that people have more disposable income.
Business taxes haves also been lowered with the expectation that their savings will be passed on to consumers with lower prices. Infrastructure is modernised and expanded so that workers will spend less time and money to get to work, increasing their productivity. With better roads, goods can get to market expeditiously, resulting in lower costs and prices for consumers.
The Government is commended for all it has done to aid consumers and home owners. Farmers are being assisted tremendously and encouraged to produce more food that will inevitably result in lower prices. Government should consider increasing assistance to farmers to produce – financial incentives based on productivity. An increase in agricultural production will result in lower food prices.

Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram