OPINION: More cash grants in 2025—must be the elections

Last Updated on Sunday, 5 January 2025, 15:16 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo is one of the most heroic persons I have ever encountered. Believe me, my fellow Guyanese, I met some world-class hustlers and opportunists on Wall Street. But the vice president has done so well. And, as much as it pains me to say, President Irfaan Ali is also trying his best to fall in with the big boys and making fine progress. Just a matter of time. The issue on the table is cash grant. Let’s see.

In record-breaking budgets, the PPP Government and its big people had a ball, a big one. In one year more than half the national budget ($558 billion) was set aside for infrastructure. Infrastructure for the PPP is what crime is to the Mafia, or crack cocaine to an addict. Corruption and cronyism aside, hundreds of billions for infrastructure meant that the ordinary citizen had to settle for less, considerably less as their part of the budget slice, not even 10%. When well-intentioned people, aside from me, called and called for the PPP Government to manifest some compassion for Guyanese by putting some much-needed money in their hands, Dr. Jagdeo hollered and hissed. When he didn’t double over in fitful frenzies, he dismissed with the wave of a hand the circumstances that beat Guyanese into the dust. President Ali, not one to be left out of any moblike frenzy, also did his part in denying needy Guyanese a timely helping hand. Due to regard for Guyana’s highest office, I stop there. But my doing so should also empathize with the high regard that I have for Excellency Ali.

Both of them pointed to the laughable. A couple of thousand more for pensioners, a handout for schoolchildren and some subsidies. Pittances were what they amounted to, especially considering the presence of oil money and national budget whoppers. Now cash grants are all the rage and coming soon to all local neighborhoods. The very same assistance that some of us were pushing for (which were roundly rejected) has now been apparently embraced by Drs. Ali and Jagdeo. What has changed? What is new? If not before, then why today?

According to the president, there will be more than one cash grant. Not in the years to come, but a few of them and all in this pivotal 2025. It would be helpful to learn when and where President Ali discovered his cash grant religion. As religions go, the president is now what we call in America a cash grant holy roller. No Guyanese can speak more loudly, more fluently, than Irfaan Ali about cash grants. After putting the squeeze on locals for over four crippling years, and scorning calls to help Guyanese, the PPP Government (and Ali and Jagdeo) has found that cash grants have much merit.

Oil money flowing into the Oil Fund in New York hasn’t doubled, so that there is so much more money to free up for citizens. If I may, perhaps, the heavy expenditure on costly infrastructure projects has ensured that PPP Government topsiders (and 4-F cabals) have had their fill of budget money. So, today money can be available for cash grants. It was the honorable Dr. Jagdeo who had said that what ‘they want to do is spend and spend, spend all the money.’ It appears that he is jumping on the spend bandwagon, but with a difference. Put money in Guyanese hands, not once, but as a regular feature. Now, he is all hustle and bustle (like the president) relative to cash grants. Now Dr. Jagdeo is talking about the medium- to long-term plans for cash grant deposits via some Electronic Identification (e-ID) Card system. Why this is still not operational today is a question that both Ali and Jagdeo prefer to leave alone. As an aside, considering the helter-skelter, hit-or-miss, confusion and chaos-laced approach that is part of the current cash grant distribution, both the president and vice president should not only be held aloft in effigy, but should have had the decency to resign. President Ali could apologize to Guyanese, but Dr. Jagdeo should be sent home to spend his earnings. I would add Dr. Ashni K. Singh to keep him company. Only in a ragged, backward society like Guyana could political leaders of this stripe preside over things like these, and then be given a free hand to repeat them later.

There is, however, one question remaining. What is new? In one word: elections. Where the PPP Government didn’t care before, it cares now, and how? When the cash grant announcement ($200,000) first came out, I went on record to say to my fellow Guyanese, don’t worry, there will be more of them. There was some clearing of the throat from both the president and vice president back then. It looks that they are on the same page with me, but only now due to the upcoming elections. Elections were the reason I had advanced. Well, there is Drs. Ali and Jagdeo waxing lavishly about cash grants. It is more than them seeing eye to eye with me, finally. It is how these guys are an open book to me.