‘A Rich Country with Poor People’: Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed Demands Immediate Public Sector Salary Hikes and Emergency Price Controls on Basic Food Staples

By Marvin Cato HGP Nightly News |

GEORGETOWN, GUYANA — Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed has launched a scathing critique of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration over its handling of the country’s worsening cost-of-living crisis, accusing the government of lacking a coherent macroeconomic plan to cushion ordinary citizens as inflation eats away at household incomes despite record revenues from petroleum and gold exports.

Addressing a national press conference on Monday, October 26, 2026, Mohamed demanded that the executive institute an immediate, across-the-board salary increase for all public servants, implement statutory price controls on essential food items, and halt state-sponsored commercial operations where government officials directly compete with struggling local farmers.

Mohamed argued that while the administration touts massive national budgets and macroeconomic growth driven by an offshore production pace of over 900,000 barrels of crude per day, working-class families across the ten administrative regions are being forced further beneath the poverty line.

The Petro-State Paradox: Oil Billions vs. Market Strains

Challenging the administration’s economic distribution model, the Opposition Leader contended that Guyana’s natural resource windfall is failing to translate into tangible, daily relief for average households:

• Resource Windfall vs. Household Realities: Mohamed highlighted that between daily crude production, royalty entitlements, and global gold prices reaching historic highs, the state’s daily cash inflows are unprecedented. Yet, public sector workers are struggling to purchase basic groceries.
• Absence of a National Strategy: Mohamed stated that ministerial interventions have been ad-hoc, cosmetic, and ineffective at curbing compounding inflation on food and household goods.

“I don’t know where we are heading in this country with the cost of living, but clearly the government, they don’t have a plan.”

Actionable Demands: Immediate Pay Hikes and Price Caps

To stop the erosion of purchasing power, Mohamed outlined specific policy demands for immediate government action:

• Immediate Public Sector Pay Hikes: Calling on the administration to bypass routine year-end percentages and roll out an emergency salary adjustment to help civil servants, teachers, police ranks, and healthcare staff keep pace with market inflation.
• Statutory Price Caps on Staples: With the price of food, transportation, and cooking gas continuing to escalate, Mohamed called for temporary price controls on foundational dietary staples—including flour, rice, sugar, cooking oil, and poultry—to protect low-income consumers from retailer markups.
• Expanded Social Safety Nets: Urging the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security and the Ministry of Finance to direct targeted subsidies and social relief packages to single-parent households, pensioners, and minimum-wage earners.

“I’m calling on this administration to increase salaries for public servants immediately.”

Farmgate Disruption and Communication Blackout

Mohamed also took aim at structural issues within the domestic agriculture and livestock markets:

• Government Officials Competing with Farmers: The Opposition Leader alleged that senior government officials and state-backed ventures are setting up competing agribusiness operations, crowding out small-scale traditional farmers and distorting domestic supply chains, which drives local food costs upward.
• Digital Outreach Suppression: Shifting to political operations, Mohamed noted that his ground teams continue extensive outreach across rural and urban communities. However, he lamented that three of his primary social media pages—which command hundreds of thousands of followers and serve as key civic feedback and broadcast platforms—remain disabled, an issue he framed as an attempt to restrict opposition voices.