Cost-of-living

Feb 16, 2026 Letters, The GHK Lall Column

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(Kaieteur News) – The PNC’s Dr. Terrence Campbell gets credit for highlighting cost-of-living pains experienced by poor Guyanese in the nation’s consciousness.  Though he tracked the footsteps of some from civil society and others elsewhere, Dr. Campbell earns recognition for wanting to do something tangible about such.  Something that would make Guyana’s struggling sit-up, and the PPP Govt. brace itself.  Like peaceful street protests.  Unfortunately, due to some mysterious internal dynamics within the PNC, Dr. Campbell’s idea suffocated from lack of oxygen.  Thus, the extending of the PPP-created shrine at which the hopes of Guyanese were sacrificed, their blood spilled in droplets first, then torrents since.

Enter Mr. Azruddin Mohamed of a curious new political party with a peculiarly haughty acronym, WIN.  He hung his sharp spurs on the horns of cost-of-living and corruption, and fighting to do better for Guyanese on both.  Cost-of-living pressures grind poor Guyanese into the swamps, while corruptions gore the senses into a coma.  Good choices for there is much palpable raw material with which to work.  Plus, there is Mr. Mohamed himself reportedly possessing the most practical education and intimate insights on how the local corruption culture operates.  The man for the two jobs, and he could be a difference maker if around long enough.  A gatherer of disgruntled voters, also, which frightens the PPP endlessly.

Enter Dr. Ashni Singh, PPP Govt. man, and man of national budgets that make countless Guyanese into miniatures of themselves (midgets are socially unacceptable).  Once Dr. Singh is given a close hearing what emerges is that his budgets are fake works of art, blueprints of imperiling beauty.  It is lamentable that a man of the intellectual prowess of Ashni Singh could be so lacking in insight.  He has a real doctorate, is a magician with the numbers, and believes his own propaganda.  Indeed, a fine mind is a terrible thing to waste.  According to Dr. Singh he and his government’s budgets are for all Guyanese.  The PPP budgets are for the people.  I differ; humbly table this question for Dr. Singh, which a man of his caliber should have absolutely no trouble answering.  Since the budgets, none as much as the 2026 budget, are so bright with provisions for all Guyanese, how is it that impoverished, underwater seabed walking Guyanese have so much difficulty getting a bite?  A proper bite with the proper vitals at the proper times.

A budget for the people, dear Dr. Singh, means that the poor and famished in Guyana get something from the budget.  From the budget, sire.  Citizens cannot eat the budget, either its grand numbers, or it glowering narratives.  It is why cost-of-living is now a greater moral and emotional issue for Guyana’s cash-challenged and food-deficient.  The PNC’s Dr. Campbell was onto to that burning something, that defining issue, but which appears to have been consigned to a premature cremation inside his party.  The PNC’s lost opportunity is WIN’s Mohamed groundbreaking moment.  What is there that could generate more awakening, more passion, than cost-of-living torments in Guyanese who have been left behind by record budget after record budget?  A cruel and disaster-prone PPP Govt. knows that it has erred egregiously yearly with its budget portions for the poor, the downtrodden, the despairing.  All eyes and fingers are pointed in the direction of the PPP Govt. and its smirking fat cats now rendered ever more rotund from the rich harvests from Guyana’s oilfields, goldfields, and lush budgetary fields.

From the poor’s perspective, the barbarians aren’t approaching the gates.  For the most part, the ruthless barbarians are already inside the gates, and have set up shop in Office of the President, Office of the Prime Minister, Office of the Vice President (why no rebuttal to political opponent claiming to be the PPP bankroller?), and the Office of Budget Creativity and Controls in the Ministry of Finance.  A man as untoward as Nicholas Maduro in his prime could have redistributed Venezuela’s oil money to where it gave the biggest bang.  The tragedy here is that the people with the power and the purse prefer to keep the economics just the way it has always been.  More millions set aside for the local Midas(es), a coat of cow dung for the weak, vulnerable children of Guyana.  Cost-of-living is now a Guyanese tragedy.  Campbell faltered.  Mohamed forges ahead on what looks like borrowed time.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Ashni Singh, Azruddin Mohamed, cost-of-living, GHK Lall, PPP

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