Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo last week assured that Government plans to increase assistance to groups that are most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 has considerably changed the socio-economic dynamics of nations, with none spared, including Guyana.
Apart from tens of thousands either directly or indirectly affected by closure and/or down-scaling the operations of sugar estates, resulting in devastation in sugar-producing communities, unquantifiable low-income earners suffered job losses due to a deceleration of economic activity in the Private Sector.
Long before the pandemic struck, Guyana had been reeling as the coalition Government inexorably squeezed the lifeblood in form of taxes and otherwise out of entrepreneurs, and constrained economic activity in every sector in Guyana. This massive displacement of persons, oftentimes sole bread-winners of families, caused truncation of many children’s education due to lack of funds for requisite needs. The situation had become so dire countrywide that once-proud, economically independent persons and entire families had become impoverished almost overnight.
The callousness of the Granger-led Government knew no bounds even as entire families in the sugar belt lacked the basic wherewithal to survive on a daily basis.
Having taken over the administration of the country following the last elections, the PPP administration went into overdrive and showed that real leadership did not need administrative offices, but vision and clarity of minds that had the empathy to recognise the dire need of help for people in difficult circumstances. It also required the ability to sympathise with the suffering, and the capability of formulating strategies to address, in tangible ways, the needs of people, especially the vulnerable in society. In effect, providing the wherewithal for afflicted people to survive catastrophes – either natural or man-made.
This state of affairs was exacerbated by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and a countrywide need for curfews to enforce people, except those in service sectors, to remain in their homes and adopt social distancing guidelines. The curfew edict also restricted the opening of entertainment venues, thereby causing more job losses and reducing and/or curtailing income-generation capacities of some business owners.
During previous times of PNC rule, the PPP had organised food distribution to those most affected. Likewise, when sugar workers were forced on the breadline by the downsizing of the sector and closure of sugar-producing estates, which affected entire communities dependent on the industry, then PPP/C presidential candidate, former Housing Minister Irfaan Ali, organised hamper distribution drives with the support of funders/ contributors from the Diaspora and here at home in Guyana.
When the Party finally attained administrative office in August of 2020, the Government formulated, with immediacy, ameliorative measures to give Guyanese citizens in every community relief packages on short-term basis. This was while, through Cabinet and Parliamentary procedures, creating systems for long-term remedial measures to give Guyanese relief from pecuniary existences and develop wealth and job-creation projects, simultaneously devising educational/empowerment programmes to benefit citizens from every strata of society.
Jagdeo assured the nation on Friday last that relief measures to the most vulnerable, including pensioners, would continue and be increased.
The Vice President, while admitting that the Government had some difficulties in the administration of the first nationwide $25,000 per household COVID-19 relief cash grant, said the Administration is taking a balanced approach to addressing the pandemic and public health, while also keeping the economy afloat.
The imperative of curbing the spread of COVID-19 cannot be stressed enough, because, increasingly, precious lives are being lost to the dreaded pandemic, so people need to be responsible and observe the protocols in efforts to lessen the rates of infection. This has to be done even as Government strategises a continuum of measures to bring relief to the nation, including the provision of vaccines and boosting its testing and intensive care treatment capacities to deal with new cases of COVID-19, and training more health personnel to fight the pandemic.
The Vice-President iterated, “If you look where we stand globally, we’re among one of those countries that are doing better than most, even in developed jurisdictions.”
