OPINION: The 2024 Jagdeo Budget Part 4: Let’s con the Guyanese working class! 

Last Updated on Wednesday, 7 February 2024, 8:30 by Denis Chabrol

by Retired Read Admiral  Gary Best, LLB; LEC; PhD.

According to VP Jagdeo, “richer people can afford private health care and private education.” He was also excited to tell the Guyanese family that “…the services that are now produced in the private sector that you have to pay for, CT scan, ultrasound etc, … if you can get these in good quality public institutions, poor people can have better care…” It is shameful that the standard of health care and education is measured by what is being offered by the private institutions in Guyana, and not the tax funded public health institutions. So, this philosophy of the PPP government in relation to health care and education, as a service for ‘poor people’, is responsible for the deterioration of health facilities and education services for the Guyanese family. 

Health care in Guyana is a disaster! In defending his health plan, VP Jagdeo boasts, “we are looking to recruit people to man these hospitals….” The question that arises is where is the labour coming from? Especially when it is clear that the PPP administration has placed no comparable resources to build out the capacity, over time, of the public and quasi-public servants/service necessary to manage, provide and audit the entire spectrum of services the government is required to provide. Are we building without any knowledge of the labour available? Or is the PPP planning to bypass the public service and outsource this critical labour requirement to non-Guyanese? Is the PPP planning to outsource the manning of these hospitals to non-Guyanese? Are these hospitals really public? Which ‘One Guyana’ is this budget speaking to? 

VP Jagdeo also boasts about providing health care to the Guyanese family. But the truth lies in transferring wealth to an elite few by monetizing health care in Guyana via a concept of ‘voucherism.’ The Jagdeo budget begins this new fad with monetizing cervical cancer testing, using vouchers to be redeemed at private and public health facilities. However, against the backdrop of his confession that private hospitals are better equipped than our public facilities, we see these vouchers being spent at private institutions. That’s how our wealth is being transferred to the rich. That’s the con! That’s the switch!

Health care, like education must be free in Guyana. We have the resources. If cervical cancer is so important to our women, why voucher it? What’s next on this list? Is the PPP planning to provide vouchers for treating other cancers, diabetes, heart transplants, CT scans, MRIs, etc.? In short, monetizing health care is a danger to the Guyanese family. It takes away from Sate institutions the provision of health services to which the Guyanese family is entitled. This is, no doubt, a very worrisome development, and a scary health concern to the Guyanese families. It is clear that, as far as the PPP is concerned, the entitlement is not free health care, but discretionary health care via voucher system. Just imagine the risks, vulnerability, political manipulation, discrimination and cajoling obligations of the Guyanese family this new fad creates, particularly since according to VP Jagdeo, health costs are finite. 

What a shameful and vulgar con game the Jagdeo budget is trying to sell to the Guyanese family. The citizens of this country must be able to show up at government run health facilities and receive free health care, of all categories based on simply being Guyanese, and not based on a voucher to be acquired and then redeemed at a public or private institution. Who guarantees the voucher will reach the right persons? Who determines which Guyanese qualifies? Who determines a medical condition exists that requires a voucher? 

This entire PPP health care voucher process is counterproductive to Guyanese family development. The government is politicizing the delivery of entitled services to Guyanese families. It is certainly not too difficult to recognize their attempt to use taxpayers money to create a sense of obligation on the part of those Guyanese families favoured to receive these vouchers. It is vulgar! It is another way of attempted vote buying while keeping the Guyanese families on a shoestring budget. 

Dr Gary Best is a former Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force, a Caribbean-trained lawyer and the holder of a Doctorate in International Relations. He is also a member of the Central Executive Committee of the opposition People’s National Congress Reform.