A number of Caricom leaders are due to meet in Georgetown on Friday to discuss among other things the escalating cost of living due to rising fuel prices and the decline in value in the US dollar.
At the press conference he hosted last week, President Bharrat Jagdeo said that the increase in the cost of living was having an adverse effect on the entire Caribbean region and Guyana was not the only country affected.
The meeting being called, he said, was at the request of Prime Minister of Grenada Dr Keith Mitchell, who felt that it was urgent that the issue be discussed. In Uganda where they met during the just-concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) they agreed to meet before year end.
Mitchell, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Patrick Manning have expressed their intention to attend the meeting, he said.
Jagdeo said that due to the escalating price of fuel and the decline in the value of the US dollar, consumers were importing a lot of inflation. While blame was being cast on the Value Added Tax (VAT), he said the reality was that there was a significant reduction in taxation via the consumption tax which was a hidden tax. He said revenue being garnered from VAT was not because of a high rate but it was due to compliance.
Due to the escalating costs, he said that he was looking at relief for pensioners and other vulnerable groups. There are some 50,000 pensioners and others who receive public assistance and those workers on the bottom of the scale. Government, he said, would be raising the income tax threshold but has to decide by how much.
At Friday’s meeting he said that the leaders would also look at the state of the Economic Partnership Agreement that CARIFORUM was negotiating with the European Union.
