Gov’t wary of fake households to collect cash grants; foreigners not entitled – Jagdeo

Last Updated on Thursday, 10 October 2024, 22:13 by Writer

The Guyana government is cautious that Guyanese, regardless of their political preference, could be thinking of creating fake households and scheming other plans to cash in on more of the GY$200,000 per household cash grant than they are entitled to, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said Thursday.

“It’s not an easy task when you’re dealing with large numbers of people and you have like 5 percent of them who are looking to cheat the system—deliberately set out to cheat. We’re not starry-eyed about this and these people who try to cheat, they come from every party—APNU, AFC, PPP. That is one thing they’re united about: trying to beat the system,” he told a news conference.

Mr Jagdeo said government was aware that people could establish so-called households and that is why government was contemplating using electricity and water bills as evidence of the existence of households. “We’d have to use the data from GPL (Guyana Power and Light) and GWI (Guyana Water Incorporated) and go through a process,” he said.

The census says there are 264,000 households but the Vice President said it is estimated it could be as many as 300,000.

Mr Jagdeo, at the same time, said owners of houses which families are renting as dwellings would not be entitled to the cash grants for each household. He said if households could prove that they are renting premises, they would be able to receive the grant.

The Vice President also ruled out foreigners receiving the cash grant. “Non-nationals are not eligible. These are Guyanese families, Guyanese households., If you are not Guyanese headed households, you’re not getting this money,” he said.

With Guyana now having a US$22 billion economy, he said government opted to hand money directly to Guyanese because the history has shown that tax breaks to the private sector are not being passed on to consumers.