Dear Editor,
The insightful commentary by Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran, published in the December 7, 2025 edition of the Sunday Stabroek, provides a necessary and sobering analysis of the stark dichotomy between Guyana’s unprecedented oil-driven economic growth and the persistent, severe poverty afflicting a significant portion of its citizenry. His examination of tragic, real-world cases—from destitute families in Georgetown to elderly citizens living in squalor, as also reported in international media—underscores a profound and urgent policy challenge. With a challenge, then change in policy must come.
Mr. Ramkarran’s central thesis is compelling and merits broad consensus: despite a proliferation of social programmes today, extreme poverty remains an entrenched crisis, lacking a coherent, targeted national strategy. He correctly identifies that while broad-based poverty alleviation is a long-term endeavour, addressing extreme poverty requires a dedicated, permanent architecture of support—a system currently absent in Guyana. His historical reference to the Social Impact Amelioration Programme (SIMAP) of the 1990s under President Desmond Hoyte is apt; highlighting the need for a focused safety net mechanism tailored to acute need.
This critique raises a fundamental question for any government: why would there not be a paramount, concerted effort to lift the most vulnerable from deprivation, especially amidst historic national wealth? The call for all national leaders to recognize and act upon the severe food and general poverty affecting some 48% of the population is not a partisan matter; it is a moral and developmental imperative aligned with achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
The existence of a Food and Nutrition Security Strategy (FNSS), initiated under the previous Granger administration, illustrates that the policy framework has been contemplated. Not everything President Granger did must be thrown out.
That strategy wisely identified that food insecurity stems not from scarcity, but from issues of accessibility, utilization, and stability—to which we must now add the critical dimension of affordability, as soaring costs, places nutritious food out of reach for the majority in the nation.
The FNSS’s three-pillar approach—(1) Economic and Livelihood Security, (2) Nutrition Education and Food Safety, and (3) Institutional Coordination—remains analytically sound. Its most critical recommendation was the establishment of a high-level, cross-sectoral Food and Nutrition Security Council to break down ministerial silos and ensure coordinated implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. This proposed institutional mechanism was designed precisely to overcome the fragmented execution that has historically plagued such initiatives because of individual ministerial egos.
Therefore, the path forward is not without precedent or blueprint. The current administration has a documented framework upon which to build. Progress would require a dedicated, non-partisan commitment to the following actions:
Establish Data-Driven Transparency: Publish and utilize the 2022 national census and poverty data to establish a clear baseline. Effective policy cannot be built on speculation and the whims and fancies of policy makers. A transparent assessment of the extent of poverty and distribution is the essential foundation for all targeted interventions.
Ensure Equitable Benefit from Oil Wealth: Design and implement direct, measurable mechanisms to ensure oil revenues reach those in extreme poverty. This requires moving beyond symbolic gestures and emotional gimmicks like “when you all behave yourself you will get the cash grant”, to sustained, programmatic support—potentially drawing lessons from the targeted delivery models of past initiatives like SIMAP.
Develop a Collaborative National Plan: Present a clear, costed, and time-bound plan to the National Assembly, seeking constructive input from all stakeholders to address core issues of housing, employment, and social safety nets. The scale of ambition—such as a mass low-income housing programme coupled with skills training—must match the scale of both the crisis and the newfound national resources. There is nothing preventing (in coordination with the private sector both locally and Internationally) Guyana from building 30,000 low income homes on stilts (flooding) in a coordinated manner within 3 years. This coordinated project must be supplemented by a housing grant to get families qualified to benefit from a low interest housing loan from places like NBS.
Create a Dedicated Institutional Focus: Establish a specific department or agency with the mandate and resources to focus exclusively on the eradication of extreme poverty. This entity would coordinate the permanent support required by the most vulnerable groups: the elderly, disabled, single-parent households, and chronically ill, etc.
Revitalize Coordinated Implementation: Revisit the FNSS’s core institutional recommendation. Empower a central coordinating body, with direct accountability to the highest office, to unify the efforts of relevant ministries (Agriculture, Health, Human Services, Housing, etc.) and ensure this strategy translates into tangible results.
In conclusion, the challenge is not one of policy design but of political will, implementation rigour, and collaborative governance. In the current Irfaan Ali Government, Ministers operate in fear like glorified clerks and all the decisions are being made by two persons. Well these two persons are not God and they will not know everything. The quicker we park these egos, the quicker we fix this country.
The resources are now available. The frameworks have been discussed. What is required is the decisive leadership to operationalize a coherent, compassionate, and relentless assault on the scourge of extreme poverty and high food prices. The legitimacy of Guyana’s transformative moment will be judged not only by its macroeconomic indicators but by its tangible success in lifting the lives of its least advantaged citizens.
In 2030, when the people meet in front of that ballot box, the only question that will be on their mind is, what have you the PPP done for me personally lately. Building the Demerara Bridge has nothing to do with me personally. Building all the many highways has nothing to do with me personally. But lifting me out of deep poverty from Plastic City and putting me in a safe home, training me, and helping me to get a job so I can provide for my children and so live a life of dignity, then is when I can say you have done something for me personally lately.