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Guyana’s Economic Realities
Dear Editor,
Kaieteur News – In this era of unprecedented social and economic transformation, it was refreshing to hear President Dr. Irfaan Ali’s pledge to build an economy that lifts all Guyanese through targeted social support initiatives during a Facebook live last Sunday.
His plan to cut the cost of electricity by 50% and cooking gas by more than 75%, while providing subsidies to GPL, shows the clear intent of his government to address the cost of living over the next five years. These initiatives, coupled with his proposals to expand social safety nets and enhance access to essential services such as health, education, water, and housing, will also serve to improve the standard of living for every Guyanese, especially those from the working class.
Furthermore, the various initiatives outlined by the President will undoubtedly build on the success of successive PPP/C governments since 1992, as pointed out by Delisle Worrell in his recent research, which analyzed Guyana’s development from 1990 to 2021. In his study, published this year in the book “Economic Challenges in the Early 21st Century Guyana,” Delisle Worrell chronicles Guyana’s journey from being a country with one of the lowest Human Development Index (HDI) scores in the Caribbean to achieving an improved score in 2021. According to Worrell, the country registered continuous development at a rate that exceeded countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as most developed small states. This performance was attributed to improvements in health, education, and average income, which contributed 50%, 24%, and 10%, respectively, to the improvement in the HDI score. Even more commendable was the fact that Guyana was one of only two countries in Central America and the Caribbean that improved its HDI score between 2019 and 2021. This improvement occurred at a time when the HDI score for Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the global average, declined by 1.8% and 0.9%, respectively.
Editor, these developments were not accidental but due to the successful implementation of ‘People Centered’ policies outlined in the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRSP) I and II and National Development Strategy (NDS) by successive PPP/C governments. Our development from 1990 to 2021 also provides important context for President Ali’s pledges, as it demonstrates that Guyana can achieve meaningful gains when appropriate policies are developed and implemented.
To succeed, our leaders must be able to match generous promises with appropriate policies and actions. If not, we risk repeating the past, similar to when the PNC government promised to ‘feed, clothe and house the nation by 1976’, but instead transformed our country into one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere because it failed to match these grand promises with policies and actions.
Unlike the leaders of the opposition parties contesting the 2025 elections, the President and the political party he represents can be trusted to fulfill the promises he made last Sunday.
Yours sincerely,
Kevin Persaud
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