The PNCR says citizens need to voice their concerns about the spiralling cost of living and insist that the government take steps such as increasing salaries and removing VAT from manufactured food items to ease their plight.
According to a press release the party says government’s planned motion in Parliament today to “take note of the impact of Global rising food prices on the cost of living in Guyana” does not adequately address the plight. It calls on the public to join in the peaceful Cost of Living Demonstration set for today to mark their concerns. It encouraged the public to meet at the junction of Mandela Avenue and D’Urban Street at 1 pm, with their placards, banners and “empty pots, spoons and pans” to let their voices be heard.
The party said the public is experiencing the effects of the increase in prices for rice, cooking oil, bread, split peas, cassava, plantain and other ground provisions and a 25% increase in the cost of flour which is expected to increase further and government expects citizens to accept these conditions “because food prices are rising worldwide.” It said government is duty-bound to implement a programme to ease the workers’ plight and it demanded immediate measures such as the payment of a cost of living allowance for all workers; raising the income tax threshold to $75,000; reducing VAT to 8%; rationalising the electricity and water rates and increasing the minimum wage by at least 50%.
The opposition said these are only some of the measures that are needed immediately. Therefore, it encourages the public to meet at the junction of Mandela Avenue and D’Urban Street at 1 pm, with their placards, banners and “empty pots, spoons and pans” to let their voices be heard.
The PNCR has meanwhile written Prime Minister Sam Hinds rejecting the motion on the cost of living to be debated in Parliament today. The party advised Hinds that it rejected both the content of the motion and the procedure employed for its tabling.
It said that the motion was only circulated to MPs last Friday after the cost of living march was announced.
In the letter to Hinds, PNCR Leader and Leader of the Opposition, Robert Corbin said
“The National Assembly is, in our view, rather contemptuously reduced to being no more than a passive onlooker at developments, on this most critical national issue, viz. the suffocating cost of living increases on the citizenry of Guyana.
“Constitutionally and functionally, the National Assembly is intended to be an independent and separate branch of Government, endowed with the right to debate and propose measures to deal with issues requiring national attention.
“We, of the PNCR-1G, for example, are of the view that the Government should produce, for debate and approval, a comprehensive plan and associated programme for dealing with the current and future food supply, demand and prices situation.
“Moreover, in the immediate term, the VAT rate should be slashed by the full extent of the obvious and large windfall that has accrued to the coffers of the state. This will do much, not only to bring immediate significant relief to tormented citizens, but also to earn some credibility for the Government on its promise that VAT would be a revenue-neutral tax.”
The government yesterday announced a series of measures to ease the cost of living rise. (See other story on this page.)
