The recently launched consultations by the government on the cost of living are useful insofar as they make a real attempt to gauge from the grass roots the items that produce sticker shock and the structural problems that result in undue price increases.
The ministers have made their visits and a brief report should be compiled for immediate action. Hopefully, the exercise will not disintegrate into quietude and nothingness as there have been genuine concerns post-VAT in January 2007 and more recently over the general cost of living. The strike by Berbice sugar workers was a sign that people are in no mood to be fobbed off and in the case of sugar workers they face the longstanding dilemma which has been insoluble and which their unions have not made sufficiently serious efforts to address: what happens in the out of crop season when `catching their hand’ and the odd fish in the backdam is all that is available?
Leaving aside the question of the volatile stratospheric price of fuel and its knock-on effect on commodity prices, the immediate task of the government and its agricultural agencies is to find a pathway towards cheaper food particularly the type that has to be imported and is now gouging out a large portion of the disposable income of the masses.
