Dear Editor,
Dr. Tilokie Depoo’s recent missive on poverty in Guyana is a symbolic journey in statistical escapism. By leaning on dated World Bank figures and high-level IMF growth projections, the author attempts to paint a portrait of prosperity that many Guyanese simply do not recognize when they look at their grocery bills or bank balances.
The most glaring “econometric sin” in Dr. Depoo’s analysis is the omission of the 2022 Census data. For an economist to theorize on poverty in 2025 using a 2017 World Bank snapshot is akin to a doctor diagnosing a patient using a seven-year-old X-ray. Without the updated census, any claim regarding the “direction of public policy” is not an empirical fact; it is a hypothesis at best and political gaslighting at worst.
The writer relies on an abundance of “pseudo-economic jargon” to create a barrier of entry for the average citizen. In a country where functional literacy remains a significant hurdle, such narra-tives are not educational—they are predatory. By using terms like “empirical record” and “fiscal-monetary alignment” to mask the reality of 20% food inflation, Dr. Depoo is banking on the hope that the public cannot decipher the deception. We are here to tell him: We see through the fog.
While Dr. Depoo touts “real GDP growth,” he conveniently ignores the Cantillon Effect—where the new money (oil revenue) benefits those closest to the source first, while the resulting inflation devalues the currency for those at the bottom.
• The Nuance: Rising real wages in the oil and gas sector do not equal rising purchasing power for the public servant and the farmer. Nor the pensioner whose 10% increase ironically results in a net loss when compared against the 20-25% inflation rate.
• The Gap: VAT removal on water and electricity is helpful, but it is a “drop in the bucket” when compared to the double-digit food inflation that has characterized the post-2020 economy.
The writer praises “direct cash grants” as a success. However, in the absence of a transparent, data-driven social safety net, these “one-off” interventions can appear more like political patronage than sustainable poverty alleviation. True development isn’t measured by how many grants a government hands out, but by how “few people actually need them.”
Sustainable poverty reduction requires more than just “balanced investment”; it requires radical transparency. To suggest that the current policy mix is “aligned with international best practice” while ignoring the absence of current, localized poverty data is a discredit to the pro-fession of economics and a dis-service to the Guyanese public, rendering his com-mentary as just another excursion laced with Govt aligned propaganda .
We don’t need “emotive claims,” but we also don’t need sanitized, pro-government narratives that use macro-economic jargon to hide micro-economic hardship.