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The $30K electricity subsidy and government handouts

Aug 22, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The PPP/C Government came up with another trick recently- its $30,000 electricity subsidy to pensioners. The gesture is part of the administration’s ad hoc approach to governance: they wake up one morning in the month of August and decide they will give the electricity subsidy to pensioners, nevermind it was budgeted for and could have been introduced much earlier in the year.

It is clear that the unveiling of this programme has nothing to do with a government that cares for its citizens, but more to do with politicking and a failing administration trying to win favour with the population. The subsidy itself would not work. The average household spends around $10,000 in electricity charges, which means that within three months of the year the $30,000 would have been exhausted. The government continues to spend billions to subsidise electricity generation to benefit the foreign companies who are the biggest consumers.

But the government is so bent on treating its citizens as beggars they are stuck on giving them handouts.  When many citizens in an oil rich country are struggling and hurting, the thought of what is popular is in and of itself an insult and an abomination. We have always said and stood by one standard: almost half in the Guyanese population are in urgent need of meaningful and sustained assistance. The handouts, though helpful, have all the endurance of a Band-Aid, or some homemade poultice. It is time for the PPP/C Government to introduce a programme of relief that has material salary increases, tax relief, and other cost-of-living relief measures as part of a long-term plan that makes a difference in the lives of the statistically richest people in the world.  All of this is long overdue; it is time to be rid of the temporary and the piecemeal approach.

Then amid the handouts culture, food prices continue to surge despite governmental concessions to importers. The real question remains: has the government conducted any surveillance or surveys to establish whether these benefits it has offered to importers have been passed on to consumers?

The increase in the cost of food in Guyana is added to be by limited production capacities. Despite being endowed with fertile land and favourable agricultural conditions; Guyana does not produce food on the scale necessary to drive prices down.  The government has been making a lot of noise about being self-sufficient in poultry production. This ought to have reduced the cost of such products on the market. The contrary has happened; prices have increased. It is cheaper to import chicken from Brazil, even with the high tariffs, than to buy it locally. But in order to protect the local poultry market, the government will not allow the mass importation of chicken from Brazil. The cost-of-living crisis is far more complex than the government portrays. It is not merely about an overheating economy or higher demand. It is about an economic structure that permits sellers to hold consumers at their mercy, increasing prices at their whim and expecting consumers to pay.

We, and other citizens of this country, have expressed misgivings about handouts, be they in cash or other form. Neither President Irfaan Ali nor his PPP/C Government has looked with favour on Guyanese who quietly questioned certain programmes put into motion. The handouts were one such programme, and our position was that it was not sustainable, that it was prone to significant corruption, and that there has to be better ways for government to offer relief to Guyanese.

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