“Because We Care”: Some parents without custody of children dishonestly collected cash – Manickchand

Education Minister Priya Manickchand, during a recent episode of “The Guyana Dialogue”, unveiled that some parents who do not have custody of their child/children showed up at schools and dishonestly collected the “Because We Care” cash grants.
According to the Minister, the MoE is currently in the process of dealing with such persons.
“So, we have a couple of rules: we’re giving the grant to the parent who has custody of the child. One or two parents have slipped through, where the person without custody dishonestly came for the grant; and we’re trying to, and have tried to, deal with those,” the Minister said.

While on the topic of parents being unable to uplift grants due to late registration, Manickchand highlighted that there is an accountability system in place for the monies that are being distributed, and only after the process is completed might the Ministry be able to give grants to some parents, depending on what amount is remaining.
“We want you to all have it, [but] we also want to be accountable. Throughout this process, the Auditor General’s Department was with us…from the packing of the envelopes to the vetting of the registers, to the paying out of the grant. And so, we asked people to register their children by the 31st of March, and then I gave an extension to the 14 of April. And it’s only if you’re on this register that we’re going to pay. We can’t pay anybody off [of] it at this point, because we can’t account for that. When it’s done, I’m going to have a look at what is remaining to see if we could pay all the new intake that didn’t get registered, but that’s a separate process,” the Minister explained.
It was reported on June 9 that a total of 90% of the grants were distributed across the country.
The “Because We Care” cash grant programme began in 2021 after the PPP/C assumed office in August 2020. During the first year, distribution was done in the last week of August, but the Ministry received several notes of feedback that this timeline was too late for parents and guardians to make informed decisions. As such, in 2022, grant distribution was slated for July, but this required persons to return to schools within their holiday period.
“This year, because tests begin next week, we can’t do it next week, we can’t do it the following week, and school closes the next week; so, we end up back in the same holiday period,” Manickchand said. “This was the only time we could’ve done this if we were to hear our parents and teachers, and try as much as we want to give this benefit and this service,” she added.
This year, over 214,000 children in both public and private schools were expected to benefit from the cash grant programme. This equates to some $8.6 billion in disposable income being made available to families nationwide.
The Minister noted that the $40,000 cash grant comes as a promise made by the Irfaan-Ali led administration, and added that before the end of Government’s five-year tenure, the targeted distribution amount is $50,000 the least.