At the supermarket you see the failure of 50 years of Independence

Apr 14, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Let us take a temporary break from the implications and consequences of the Harmon events and look at some of the failures of Guyana that call into question the very viability of this country. On Wednesday morning, I went to a vendor I patronize often. She plies her trade at the northeastern corner of Robb and Alexander Streets, a block away from the busy site of Bourda Market.
Her daughter told me that a lemon was $300. I told her that the price is for rich people. She laughed and said, ‘Nah maan.” For months now, lemons have been carrying that price. About a month ago, it was $360. It appears it has dropped down to $300. My wife is a huge user of lemons because she says it is better as a cleaner than limes. I didn’t buy the lemon but drove home. On my way, I have to pass several supermarkets on Sheriff Street. I stopped at Survival Supermarket to get a few items my wife requested.
An imported lemon at Survival is $160. Please don’t take my word for it. Just call the supermarket. I have kept the bill just in case I receive calls about the accuracy of the price listed here. When I was growing up on Durban Street many yards had lemon trees, including our neighbour’s, Mr. Pillay’s.
Today we are weeks away from celebrating 50 years of Independence from Britain. This is a CARICOM country that is bigger than all the rest of states within the integration movement combined and a country seen as the agricultural showpiece of CARICOM. But an imported lemon is $160; the local price is $300. Doesn’t this deserve a polemical discourse on what Guyana has achieved over those 50 years?
It is not the importation process that is the point but the item itself. Third World countries import untold numbers of items they just cannot produce. That is the nature of world trade. American and European money made the Persian Gulf states super-rich through the importation of oil. The US and Europe in turn sold these Gulf states products they could not manufacture, in the end getting back trillions of dollars that they sent to the Arab oil-producing nation for the purchase of oil.
A funny example should suffice. The West imports jet fuel. But the West exports jet. So the Arabs export jet fuel and with that money import planes.
We cannot manufacture countless items in Guyana but do we have to import lemons that sell cheaper than our own? In the area of agricultural products, shouldn’t our population have them in bountiful supplies to even throw away? In my youthful days, we frowned on lemons because they were as perennial as the grass.
After 50 Years of Independence where have the lemons gone to? I grew up with Guyanese having no excessive craving for bananas because bananas were our thing. It was a fruit that Guyanese could acquire in plentiful supply so why bother to seek it out. Today as they say in local lingo, “banana is a man.” A pound of cayenne bananas is $300.
There is the famous banana seller at the northeastern corner of East Street and Church Street. I buy my bananas from him. On the Bourda Green, it is $20 less. Why aren’t they $80 a pound?
What have we done with 50 years of Independence? What have we manufactured? What are we manufacturing? Do we box local milk? In 1978, when I courted my wife I took boxed milk for her. If you look at our manufacturing base since the sixties, this country has retrogressed. I grew up on ‘gilbakka’ curry. It was a cheap fish then. Gilbakka is $1000 a pound.
I do not know if my name worked against me but last month, one of the vendors at the Stabroek Market fish pond called $1,500 a pound. I promptly walked away from him with a disgusted look on my face.
Once you are over sixty years and you have lived your entire life in this country, the cynicism about celebrating 50 years of Independence will run deep in your soul. The compulsion is there to ask; what is there to celebrate? I would risk a situation where I could be condemned for saying in every sphere of life as a country we have gone backwards. I am waiting for the television interview invitation.
I am waiting for the symposium invitation to argue my case. My wife needed the lemons. I bought three of the imported ones. I have the receipt to show you if you doubt me. Wanna bet?

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At the supermarket you see the failure of 50 years of Independence

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