Dear Editor,
The Stabroek News cost-of-living truck pulled up at La Grange this week. Stop number 158 in SN’s coverage that emphasizes the trials and hardships of Guyanese. I didn’t read what this latest batch of 10 Guyanese had to say in a very public way about their condition in big GDP Guyana, in bigshot economy Guyana, in Big Oil Guyana. I could predict that, because their plight is neither new nor unknown in Guyana. Other Guyanese live next to them. SN has told the story of Guyanese struggling to buy rations, and left staring at the empty condition of their kitchen. Excellency Ali makes his jokes about cash grant, prompting his audience to break out in riotous laughter. Suffering Guyanese breakout into a bigger rash. The other doctor, AK Singh, is busy perfecting his 2026 budget. The rash of Guyanese who feel pain can degrade to a full-blown fever.
I didn’t read. I looked at the photos of those 10 villagers living in La Grange. Those photographs told the whole story. They are more than pictures representing a thousand words. Those pictures each impressed with the sharp sense of a thousand pains felt. In this oil rich Atlantis, this wannabe Dubai, there was this snapshot of 10 Guyanese and none of them were smiling. Solemn. Sad. Staring. Struggling and suffering. But not a single smile. Did Guyana discover oil? Or did Guyana discover crude oil, then convert it to snake oil, castor oil, and gearbox oil for its citizens to drink?
Pres. Ali is from Leonora, not too far from La Grange. When not one of those ten citizens can smile in this national oil heaven, then a caring president would cry. For when Guyanese from La Grange to La Bonne Intention have to look at a shop shelf, a market basket, and walk away with a heavy heart and an empty bag, then it is time that I weep. The president can have his fun with cash grants. I weep, and I am not a crying man. For when it is the same horror story from the gloriously named Devonshire Castle to Windsor Castle, and from Sand Creek to Moleson Creek, then what has happened to all the great riches that came to Guyana?
Faces in new places, and a newspaper weekly, and there is that drawn, haggard, fearful, hopeless look in them. A president cracks jokes; the listening and delirious fat cats meow. Whoever got a sweet piece of the oil action before, lining up to get a sweeter piece of it now. Who the hell cares about 10 Guyanese, some at different points on the lower ends of economic graphs and charts? So, week after week, there are those Guyanese who have that thousand-yard stare, as if they have just passed through a war, or are still haunted by it. Theirs have a name: The Great Guyanese Cost of Living War. Their govt was expected to be on their side. They lost out to bricks and buildings. Their president that they trust so much, decided to have a little harmless fun at their expense. Harmless to a man with a full pantry and a fuller stomach. But a curse on those for whom purchasing cooking gas, a bag of rice, and a pound of chicken is a nightmare wrapped in an ordeal that is trapped in a calamity.
The people in La Grange, and many other villages across Guyana, cry out for relief. More money? Or more callousness? Forget about Xmas. I speak of 2026 and Ashni Singh’s calculations being conducted in secrecy and what promises more steel and something called algorithms. There will be provisions and visions for the poor. Big, fat numbers. But compared to what? Because when one dollar is given to one family, and a hundred (or a thousand) is given to other already rich human actors for nonhuman development, then that’s neither imbalance nor thoughtless nor barbaric. Simply stated, that should be a crime.
La Grange and SN presented a prism of pain. The president can continue pretending he has all the answers, fly into a rage, when asked: sir, what about them? How about those other Guyanese who have expressed their grief publicly with cost-of-living being the source of their anguish? Those etched and wretched faces out of La Grange should awake the leadership and national consciousness.