Dear Editor,
Guyanese families have been feeling the effects of the global food crisis as the cost of living rises severely. Anyone who has gone into the market recently has come home noticing the same amount of money buys much less than before. It now costs over $2000 a day to feed a family of four (2 adults, 2 children) with a breakfast of tea, bread and an egg each. Lunch is a pound of chicken and bora and rice, a snack of fruit and biscuits for the children at school and bread and tea in the evening. A month of food is $60,000, and then there is rent, electricity, water and transportation costs to cover.
Yet the minimum wage is between $18,000 (private sector) to $28,000 (public sector) a month, if you are lucky enough to have one of these jobs regulated by these wages.
As prices for food and electricity skyrocket in Guyana it is increasingly difficult for many families to make ends meet. Those families that were barely scraping by last year are now facing a severe crisis in their homes, and many more families are being thrown into poverty and hunger during this critical time.
