Ali criticises Norton’s school attendance conditionality for children’s cash grant

Last Updated on Sunday, 16 February 2025, 20:38 by Writer

President Irfaan Ali at the weekend lashed out at Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton’s announcement that his coalition plans to make school attendance a conditionality for children receiving the cash grant.

“What kind of barefaced crookery is this, man?” Dr Ali queried while addressing the sod-turning for a new West Demerara Hospital at Best Village, West Coast Demerara.

The President did not address Mr Norton’s specific concern that not all of the cash grants were benefitting children as their parents were using the money to do their hair and nails.

In clear reference to Mr Norton’s People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR)-led coalition’s scrapping of the children’s cash grant, Dr Ali said the opposition was now setting the stage to erode the financing facility. “The very people who looked your children in their eyes, who took away the ‘Because We Care’ grant between 2015 and 2020 coming back now to tell you we will give you the grant… and then they say we will give them but they have to go to school,” the President said.

The Guyanese leader said government wants children to be schooled, but the reality is that the education system has to be built that delivers at different levels such as technical education and remedial education. “They don’t have a clue about the policy matrix and policy framework,” he added.

He said the People’s Progressive Party Civic administration had provided the ‘Because We Care’ cash grants before oil was discovered and the PNCR-led coalition took it away when oil production started.

Dr Ali, who would be running for a second term, cautioned Guyanese against being gullible to electoral promises. He also urged them to trust those with the right track record.