Teachers 10% salary increase can’t keep up with rising food inflation rate – AFC

Aug 25, 2024 News

---

Kaieteur News – In the realms, where consumers’ prices are increasing, making it difficult to buy as much as they could in the past, the Opposition Member of Parliament and Shadow Minister of Finance, Juretha Fernandes has raised concerns over the rising food inflation of eight percent and the meager 10 percent which the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) accepted from the government on Wednesday.

Kaieteur News reported that the GTU’s President, Mark Lyte signed a multi-year agreement with the government accepting the ten percent pay hike for teachers and a slew of other benefits, none of which accorded with the demands of the union. The agreement stipulates that teachers will receive a salary increase of 10% for 2024, 8% for 2025 and 9% for 2026. These are the same increases that were recently rejected by the union.

Taking this into account, during the Alliance For Change (AFC) weekly press conference, held on Friday, the Shadow Minister of Finance addressed the salary increase teachers received, compared to the high food inflation, which increased throughout the months.

This move of the Government indicates the fate other public servants will face, Fernandes said.

“…We need to take this seriously as an indication of what the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) plans to deal with public servants overall for 2024, 2025 and 2026, because if this is what they have tabled before the teachers, it indicates to me that that’s the direction that they are going in for all public servants,” she stressed, while noting that the amount of money receives would not be able to combat the food inflation.

In May 2024, reports from Bureau of Statistics said that the food inflation rate was at 7.4 percent, and increased in June 2024, to eight percent.  The report further stated that the Georgetown Consumer Price Index (CPI) at the end of May 2024 was 140.38 compared to 139.39 at the end of April 2024, representing an inflation of 0.7 percent.  The Food and Transport & Communication categories were the main drivers of the monthly increase. These categories increased overall by 1.5 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, at the end of May 2024, when compared to the previous month.  To read more visit https://statisticsguyana.gov.gy/subjects/price-indices/consumer-price-index-georgetown-guyana-may-2024-2/.

Furthermore, in June, 2024 the CPI was 141.70 compared to 140.38 at the end of May 2024, representing an inflation of 0.9 percent. Food was the main driver of the monthly increase. This category increased overall by 1.9 percent at the end of June 2024, when compared to the previous month. To read more visit https://statisticsguyana.gov.gy/subjects/price-indices/consumer-price-index-georgetown-guyana-june-2024/.

To that end, the ten percent teacher increase is a drop of water to the ocean when compared to food inflation rate. As such, the AFC believes that teachers deserve more money as to the importance they have on the economy.

With that aside, Fernandes continued to address the government disbursing huge amount of money into other projects, rather than giving teachers what they deserve, following the money generated by the resources of the country.  She further compared the construction of the Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) plant, and the loan the government has applied to the United States Export Import (US-EXIM) Bank, compared to the increase the teachers received.

The Government applied to the US-EXIM bank for a US$646M loan to support the construction of the Gas-to-Energy project. Regardless of whether the bank approves the loan, the government will still push forward with the project. As such, Fernandes explained, “We can weigh it against other things, looking at the fact that we know the EXIM bank is not approving the loan when it comes to the gas to the energy (project), but the VP (Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo) is saying very boldly that yeah even if it’s not approved then we’re going to ahead, we are going to spend money towards it.”

She continued, “EXIM bank isn’t approving it because it is not showing feasible.” Nevertheless, the Member of Parliament pointed out what the government gives in returned to the in-depth document provided by teachers which specifically highlighted key things that would improve their lives as teachers in Guyana.

Former AFC leader and Attorney-at-Law, Khemraj Ramjattan who was present at the press conference described the 10 percent salary increase as, “disastrous.”

He said, “…And we know that the government was pressuring them (teachers), to accept the 10 percent…indeed the pressures of the government did make a certain fraction of the GTU’s General Council accept the 10, nine and eight percent for the next two years.”

Ramjattan then recalled when Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo reportedly indicated to public servants that the Government does not have enough fiscal space to accommodate what the public servants were asking for some time in 1999.

Ramjattan pointed out, “…So when they said that they don’t have fiscal space and only a couple months ago, or a couple of weeks ago, they come back to parliament for $40B, how you going to get fiscal space?”

The Attorney continued, “…It is a lie but there it would appear (the government)…do not want to give a better pay to our teachers.”

---

• AFC, food inflation, Government, Juretha Fernandes, salary increase, teachers

---