Govt will soon roll out financial assistance for flood-affected persons

…30,000 households, farmers, agencies to benefit from aid

Following an extensive field assessment conducted by several governmental agencies, the Government of Guyana is currently fine-tuning the data it collected that will be necessary to begin distributing assistance to flood hit households and farmers.

This was confirmed by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo during a recent interview with a social media commentator. The vice president confirmed that President Dr Irfaan Ali will soon be making an announcement regarding the financial assistance that will be rolled out. Based on the data collected, approximately 30,000 households will be eligible for Government assistance.
“And then a number of the bigger farmers that lost rice, mature rice. Seedling rice. Livestock. We have this database now and we’re now working out how much and what grants we will give to families and those who suffered losses. We’re in the middle of that,” the VP said while speaking on the topic.

Assistance also
likely for agencies
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, who was responding to questions from this publication about the $10 billion in supplementary funding that the Government received approval for from the National Assembly in June 2021, explained that the collected data is being fine-tuned.
“We’re currently examining that data; I think they’re fine-tuning and filling in a few gaps. We’ve already had a few meetings on that data. We’re going to be taking a look at that data to determine how best we can provide a response to those who have been affected,” he also said, expressing optimism that this can be completed shortly.

According to Dr Singh, this field assessment was spearheaded by Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha and various agencies under the Ministry, including the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) and Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA).
He explained that the team spent the time “looking at losses to rice farmers, acreages that have been lost, crops, losses to livestock, heads of cattle, chicken, ducks, small ruminants. Goat, sheep and so on. So, the Ministry of Agriculture has been spear-heading Government efforts to take stock of the damages and losses to both farmers and other households, because they’re doing this as one exercise.”
According to the Finance Minister, the Government’s initial priority was to keep people safe, alleviating flooding, delivering food and medical supplies. As part of the Government’s efforts to return the country to normalcy, Dr Singh noted that the Government wants to get farmers back into productive activity. As such, they will have to determine the optimal level of assistance provided to both farmers and households.
But according to Minister Singh, another dimension is the various agencies such as the National Drainage and Irrigation Agency (NDIA), which has had to use its capital budget to combat the unforeseen floods. According to the Minister, it is important that the government replenishes the hole left in the budgets of such agencies.
“For example, a lot of the NDIA budget has had to be consumed for movement of heavy equipment and mobile pumps, because we needed to get that equipment in place to clear channels where they were blocked, reinforce dams and use the mobile pumps to get the water off the land.”
“Quite a lot of those agencies used their existing funds, redeployed resources… we’re going to have to do some replenishing of their budgets to ensure they’re able to execute their originally planned programmes. Because that money was budgeted to execute their own programmes which are still needed or perhaps even more needed,” he explained.
Guyana has been inundated by heavy rains since May, which has caused widespread flooding. The devastation includes submerged buildings and vehicles with adverse effects on crops, livestock and health.
It has been noted that the rainfall experienced in May alone was recorded as the second highest level of rainfall across the country in the last 40 years. The flooding resulted in President Dr Irfaan Ali formally declaring the flooding a national disaster. (G3)