Gearing for a spending spree
Editorial
Kaieteur News
December 12, 2004
Christmas is in the air. Everyone is trying to make the home special. People are spending more than they did at any other time of the year. And this has been a tradition for as long as Guyana has been under colonial rule, particularly British rule.
Just about everyone looks forward to the season. People paint homes, wipe walls and do just about every thing to make the home look different from what it was during the rest of the year.
But these things cost money. Some people save throughout the year to spend at this time. Businesses report that 50 per cent of what they make in a given year accrues from the spending at Christmas time.
For this reason, the protest action by the main opposition party some four years ago was most debilitating to the business community. People were left with large quantities of holding stock and consequently debt since many had to pay interest on their borrowing to make the Christmas season bright.
The various stores and shopping centres are outdoing each other with sales and offers provided the people shop in certain quantities. The various television stations are festooned with advertisements proclaiming the benefits if one shops at one location or the other.
Amazingly, the situation is the same each year. People rack huge debt just to be part of the Christmas spirit and unfortunately for many, there would be three days of jollification since one of the holidays falls on a Sunday thus making the Monday a holiday.
This once more brings us to our remuneration. It is a cold hard fact that the dawn of the New Year would find many people penniless and wishing that they had kept something to tide them over until the next pay day. Most Guyanese normally live from one pay packet to the other. Their pay is just enough to cover some of the bills. To tide them through, they depend on remittances from overseas if they have relatives there, or on the largesse of some relatives who may have disposable income.
There is not a Guyanese who does not have to beg or be begged every month. The figures provided by the World Bank suggest that some 60 per cent of Guyanese live below the poverty line and at least 33 per cent live in abject poverty.
We have been boasting about our imports, our improved balance of payment situation, and the various developments designed to improve the quality of life but this is not being translated into real wages. Nurses, teachers, doctors and other skilled people still go chasing after what they consider a living wage in other countries. With the implementation of the free movement of skills reporters are leaving to take up appointments in other parts of the Caribbean . We have had teachers who left these shores to work in countries like Botswana and the United States and returned to boast that they were able to improve their assets while having to maintain two homes.
And indeed, many were able to buy cars and minibuses back home, pay the rent and other monthly expenses and still maintain themselves in their adopted land. That speaks a lot for the money they receive for the same job they once performed in Guyana . Some have been able to build comparatively posh houses.
We know that the light bills for January will be nothing short of demanding since the Public Utilities Commission has granted the power company leave to hike the rates by between 10 per cent and 12 per cent. The pay increase offered by the government is five per cent which could translate into a substantial sum for the highly paid worker but next to nothing for the lower classes of workers.
But for all this the stores seem to be doing brisk business. The pavement vendors have all but disappeared to be replaced by itinerant vendors who are also cashing in on the spending spree.
Either way, the state is going to benefit from the taxes and duties that the business community would pay to import those things that the populace would go chasing after. In the final analysis, the state would certainly receive almost as much money as it proposes to pay out retroactively.