Dear Editor,
The APNU, the AFC, and their supportive columnists now have two hundred thousand reasons to criticize and condemn the cash grant announced by President Ali on 10 October. They have now become the ‘cash grant’ specialists, since — like the spectators in a cricket match — they know more than the players. Their dilemma has increased manifold.
On October 8th, Mr Lincoln Lewis penned a letter to the Editor in the Kaieteur News, captioned ‘Discriminatory approach to cash grant distribution must stop’. He is of the misguided opinion that whatever initiative the President is rolling out was the brainchild of the Opposition, namely the ‘One Guyana’ from Corbin and the cash grant from Dr Clive Thomas.
However, just two days later, President Irfaan Ali announced a one-off cash grant of $200,000 to every household. Since then, the APNU and the AFC have appeared shell-shocked, and have been toiling ceaselessly helter-skelter to find trivial and irrelevant matters to criticize and condemn the measure; which is not only the biggest of its kind so far, but has been most welcome by Guyanese of all walks of life.
Cash grants are nothing new, but we have now heard that the idea of a cash grant was the brainchild of Dr Clive Thomas, who coined it ‘the Buxton Proposal’ and proposed the sum of ‘US$5000 per year or whatever it works out at, we can put the figure together’. This was on Emancipation Day 2018. The ‘Buxton Proposal’ died a natural death, and no mechanism, regulatory or otherwise, came into being.
Dr Thomas had called on the Coalition to put mechanisms in place to ensure that the masses benefit, but nothing was done. I wonder why the Coalition Government at the time did not embrace this proposal. They seemed to lack the will to do so, since they felt that such an annual cash transfer to every household or citizen would greatly affect their ‘pocket money’.
They knew that it was not sustainable, given the amount and the frequency, and did not want to make such a commitment. The APNU and the AFC were in Government until 2020, yet nothing further was entertained on the matter.
At that same meeting at Buxton, the new leader of the AFC, Mr Nigel Hughes, made a remarkable observation. He said, ‘My fear is that if we start to talk about giving people cash, we opening the doors to politicians to say I can give you more cash than the next one, and we end up with a ridiculous campaign of people being irresponsible about development, because it becomes a competition on who can give more.’
It is significant to note that the PPP/C did not campaign on doling out cash, but rather robust socio-economic policies to propel such development. This cash grant comes at a time when a multitude of other measures are already implemented to buffer the high cost of living. The Coalition did nothing to alleviate the cost of living while in Government. In fact, they taxed and burdened Guyanese to the hilt.
Then the APNU/AFC, having depleted the various reserves and the Consolidated Fund, waited until December 2022, when the PPP/C came to office, to vociferously demand a one-off payment of $300,000 to every home.
This is quite convenient for the Coalition. They were out of Government, and, as usual, they have all the solutions to each and every problem. They had called this proposal ‘a people-centred proposal’, but now that the PPP/C Government has proposed a $200,000 cash grant to every household, we are now hearing that the former Finance Minister criticized the initiative as being temporary, and that once it is disbursed, people will be relegated to their former position. Is this not true of the $300,000 proposed by Mr Norton in 2022? Is this not true of the $100,000 Mr Jordan is proposing to be given to every Guyanese adult? It all depends of what use is made of the grant.
What would have happened if the Buxton proposal was implemented? Dr Thomas himself had reservations, but preferred to be optimistic. ‘They are not going to just take it and sit back and consume and wait for a cheque…So it is a gamble that I am taking, but historical experience has been on my side.’ There are people who will ‘just take it (money) and sit back’.
One columnist now sees the $200,000 as fuelling increased prices and inflation, a position he was blind to prior.
Mr Hughes’s observations at Buxton in 2018 needs to be reiterated, given the promises now being made by both the APNU and the AFC: ‘…we opening the doors to politicians to say I can give you more cash than the next one, and we end up with a ridiculous campaign of people being irresponsible about development, because it becomes a competition on who can give more.’
Socio-economic development of the country is not important to these pretenders. They believe they can lie and deceive just like they did in 2015, promising the moon and the stars.
In conclusion, we must not analyze any cash grant in isolation, and fall prey to empty promises of the illusory ‘good life’, which never materialized under the Coalition. The PPP/C Government has been implementing policies and measures to buffer the high cost of living, and those measures are sustainable and would have long lasting benefits to every Guyanese.
Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf
