Peeping Tom - ME NAH EAT BREAD

Peeping Tom – ME NAH EAT BREAD

May 16, 2008 Peeping Tom

I am not a bread man. The only time you will find me having bread is at Christmas time. Then I must have bread to soak in my pepperpot. Even then I do not buy my loaves from any bakery. I bake my own bread at Christmas time.

It is for this reason that I am not fully pleased with the decision of the President to offer a subsidy to bakeries which he says accounts for ninety-five per cent of the bread baked in Guyana. This concession which I am sure will be welcomed by the vast majority of bread lovers will however not benefit me because my morning meals do not include bread.

I like to eat roti, chonta, dhall puri, polouri, bake and sada roti in the mornings. Not bread. I feel short-changed by the President.

Before the President offered the bakeries the subsidy, he should have determined just how many persons in Guyana actually eat bread. There are thousands of persons in Guyana who do not eat bread and have no intention of eating bread. I know of many Guyanese who do not eat bread since either they have grown accustomed to not eating it or because it is much cheaper to prepare your own pasta products for breakfast. In all of my years going into the backdam, I have never seen a farmer with a piece of bread. It is roti, rice or provisions.

It would, I feel, have been much better for the President to offer the subsidy on all flour sold locally. This would have benefited all Guyanese: those who eat bread and those who did not.
Bread is a relatively expensive item. In order to feed a family of six for one meal, I would have to purchase at least two loaves of bread each day. This works out to about $400 per day or $12,000 per month. On the other hand for about half that sum I can add variety to my morning meals by using the flour-based products that I listed above which are enjoyable.

The capitalist class however had to get some form of benefits from the government and this they got in the name of bread. I would however feel that instead of offering to this class the subsidy, the government should have simply gone for a further increase in the cost of living allowance.
Imagine the same capitalist class when asked by the President to give relief to their workers had the temerity to ask for it to be treated as tax-free. Can you imagine that the capitalist class which makes so much profit in this country wants the government to treat any cost of living allowance paid by the private sector as tax-free. Come on guys, you can afford to pay the taxes on the allowance!

It was the Peeper that first suggested the payment of a cost of living allowance.

The government does not wish to give the Peeper any credit for being the first to suggest a cost of living allowance and so they have refashioned the proposal as a temporary cost of living adjustment.
For a government that is not normally noted for its visionary ideas, the offer of a cost of living allowance, tax-free at that, is something that should be applauded. It will, I believe, benefit the workers of this country who never before ever got from any government a cost of living allowance even when inflation was at a runaway level. $4,000 a month I believe will take care of the additional expenses that a low income family would have had to bear ever since prices began to rise.

And while prices have increased, Guyanese should not exaggerate the effects of the increases on the cost of living. No one is going to starve or go hungry because of the rising prices.

Despite all the complaints, I still see poor workers being able to afford beers, women spending thousands to have their hair done and all manner of luxuries being indulged in by the very persons who would have you believe that they have nothing to cook the next day.

I agree with the head of the Guyana Office for Investment (GOINVEST) that Guyana is not a deh bad country. While we do have poor people, there are just too many safety valves in this society for anyone to go hungry.
I therefore support the proposals outlined by the President of Guyana in relation to lowering the cost of living. However, I would have done things differently had I been in his place.
I would have told the workers outright that the government could not afford to pay a salary increase this year but would instead pay to all workers, a cost of living allowance of between $5,000 and $10,000.
I believe that the money could have been found. Instead of having to up the public service wage bill by five per cent, I would have converted this sum along with the subsidy offered for the flour to a tax-free cost of living allowance.
In short I would have told workers that instead of a wage increase this year a cost of living allowance would have been paid. And I would have urged the private sector to do the same. In this way, whether you eat bread like Uncle Freddie does, or you eat biscuit as Uncle Adam does, or you eat bake, like the Peeper does, it is the same money each worker will receive to help them through the crises.