Home Features APNU/AFC distribute lies, President Ali rolling out largest cash transfer ever
Let us be pellucid: never, in the history of any country in Caricom, has there ever been a larger direct cash transfer from Government’s treasury into the pockets of citizens than has occurred in Guyana over the last twelve months. More than $US110M ($G22B) has been transferred out of the bank account of the PPP Government directly into the pockets of Guyanese citizens. Every Guyanese family is benefiting from President Irfaan Ali’s programme of direct cash support. No matter where people live in Guyana; no matter their race, their religion; and no matter who they voted for in the March 2020 elections, or which political party they support, everyone is benefiting.
While President Ali and his PPP Government are busy putting cash directly into people’s pockets, the leaders and MPs from APNU/AFC, the Opposition Party, are busy shamelessly distributing lies and propaganda. While they clumsily deem Dr. Irfaan Ali an “installed” President, day after day, issue after issue, they have nothing substantive to object to, and so they resort to the only weapon they have left – lies, lies and more lies.
In just one year, President Irfaan Ali and his PPP Government have transferred $22B in cash from the Government’s account to people’s pockets. Within the last forty-eight hours, President Ali announced new cash transfer measures amounting to an additional $2.6B, targeting the most vulnerable in the Guyanese society – old-age pensioners, persons in receipt of public assistance and those living with disabilities, and households consuming less than 75 kilowatts per month. More than 65,000 old-age pensioners will receive a cash grant of $25,000, or an extra month’s pension this year, at a cost of $1.6B. Just over 25,000 persons who are in receipt of public assistance, and persons living with disabilities will also receive a cash grant of $25,000, amounting to $600M. More than 40,000 households consuming less than 75 Kw per month will have one month of their electricity bills paid by the Government, amounting to $200M.
This latest round of cash transfers from Government accounts into the pockets of ordinary Guyanese citizens follows other cash transfers, such as the education cash grants, the COVID-19 relief cash grants, the cash grants for households which suffered flood damages, cash grants for farmers who suffered losses because of the recent floods, cash grants for miners who suffered losses from the recent bad weather. The more-than-$22B distributed or being distributed by the Irfaan Ali-led PPP Government in just twelve months represents the largest direct cash transfer from the Government treasury into people’s pockets ever in Guyana’s or CARICOM’s history.
The APNU/AFC Opposition is in a quandary. President Irfaan Ali has shown that he is a people’s President. He has rapidly won over large swaths of Opposition supporters because they recognise that President Ali is genuinely a caring man. The only weapon available to APNU/AFC is a desperate one – lies. They shamelessly lie. But their supporters everywhere in Guyana have not, and are not, buying the lies. When, for example, APNU/AFC tried the lie that the PPP Government is distributing COVID-19 cash relief to only PPP supporters, their own supporters who received their cash grants did not have to look far to know that APNU/AFC MPs were lying. With their lies not gaining any traction among their supporters, APNU/AFC now are focusing on selling their lies to their supporters in the diaspora.
This past weekend, a number of junior PNC (APNU/AFC) backbencher MPs and the PNC Mayor of Georgetown travelled to Brooklyn to march with a few PNC supporters, vulgarly and shamelessly spreading lies and propaganda. Senior PNC MPs and leaders could not go because their visas were taken away. One of their brazen lies to the diaspora is that the PPP’s cash transfer programme was just a giving away of oil money to PPP supporters. Every family in South Georgetown; every family in Buxton; every family in Linden; every family in Victoria; every family in Golden Grove, in Dartmouth, Den Amstel benefited similarly to every family in other parts of Guyana. Are these families all PPP supporters? Every family of the 200,000 children in schools received a $19,000 cash grant, amounting to more than $3.5B. You mean every family of a school child is a supporter of the PPP? Yet, these same politicians spreading racist propaganda want the world to accept their spurious claim that they won the March 2020 elections.
The fact is that the PPP Government and President Ali, without yet resorting to OIL money, is ensuring that every Guyanese benefits from Government’s resources. President Ali is ensuring that, at a time when COVID-19 and bad weather have devastated the livelihoods of Guyanese families, he and his Government care and will always stand with the Guyanese people. The supporters of APNU/AFC know that, in five years, the then President Granger and his Government not once gave people any direct support. That Government took away more than 35,000 jobs, including jobs from sugar workers, jobs from bauxite workers, jobs from call centres in Linden. That Government gave themselves more than 100% pay increase.
In contrast, President Irfaan Ali is ensuring unprecedented cash transfers to every Guyanese family. The Guyanese people are looking on with pride as the People’s President walks among them.