Govt broke cash grant “contract” – WIN Leader

Last Updated on Thursday, 18 December 2025, 23:01 by Writer

The leader of We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), Azruddin Mohamed, on Wednesday night assailed President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo for breaking this year’s general election promise of a cash grant for Christmas.

Dr Ali had signaled that there would have been a payout and that was reinforced by Mr Jagdeo at his press conferences.

Hours after the President announced that a GY$100,000 cash grant would be paid to all Guyanese 18 years and older after the 2026 national budget is approved early next year, Mr Mohamed said the utterances by the country’s two top government officials amounted to a now broken contract.

“That statement created a moral contract, not just a policy promise. When leaders speak that way, people don’t hear ‘maybe or next budget’, they hear certainty. Now, after the election, the language has changed,” said Mr Mohamed whose party won 16 seats at the September 1 general and regional elections to emerge as Guyana’s main opposition party.

Calling the planned GY$100,000 payout “meagre” despite oil revenues, Mr Mohamed said the cash grant was a “campaign tool, not a guaranteed obligation”. “I would like to have the PPP know that public funds are not rewards for obedience,” in apparent reference to the President’s hint of a cash grant payout last August at a campaign meeting in Eccles “if you behave yourself”.

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which has 12 seats in the National Assembly, has been demanding a cash grant of GY$150,000, arguing that the Ministry of Finance’s mid-year economic report shows that there is sufficient money for government to pay that amount to the more than 600,000 eligible Guyanese. That, APNU said, would have cushioned the impact of rising cost of living and boost business activity.

The WIN Leader also criticised President Ali for starting his address 35 minutes late and more so not to the Parliament including the Opposition Leader.

Regarded as the presumptive Opposition Leader, Mr Mohamed is yet to be elected by opposition MPs because the Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir is yet to call a meeting of those lawmakers to elect him.

Attorney General Anil Nandlall is on record as suggesting that Mr Mohamed holding that constitutional office is not in keeping with governance because he is wanted by the United States for trial for alleged financial crimes linked to his gold trading business and the importation of a luxury car that both allegedly defrauded the Guyana government of millions of US dollars.

The WIN Leader and his father, Nazar “Shell” Mohamed are currently fighting a US extradition request in the Magistrates’ Court. “The stain and the international stigma that will attach to our parliamentary process, to the institutions of Guyana, by a fugitive offender not only sitting there but holding the post of Opposition Leader, is far graver and will cost us permanent damage,” Mr Nandlall had said on a recent edition of “Issues in The News”, his social media talk show.

APNU and the one-seat Forward Guyana Movement on Wednesday criticised President Ali for opting to deliver his five-year policy agenda to diplomats and government officials instead of government and opposition MPs.