“You know once we write this, we are going to deliver” – Jagdeo

…as school students, pensioners, public servants, part-time workers to see steady, significant financial increases in the next term

Come next year the Government will spend about $40 billion on assistance for school-aged children, including the Because We Care cash grant for schoolchildren. This is according to Vice President (VP) Bharrat Jagdeo.
The VP, who held several meetings in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) on Friday, noted that the cash grants will be significantly increased.
Speaking ahead of the release of the PPP/C 2025-2030 Manifesto, Jagdeo said students are expected to receive a significant increase on the $50,000 given to each child in 2025. According to the VP, the Government will be spending about $40 billion on grants to school-aged children next year, once he is re-elected to office.
In 2024, the Government spent $9.2 billion on the Because We Care cash grants – including both the cash component and school uniform allowance.
This amount reflected the combined value of the $40,000 per child cash grant plus a $5000 uniform allowance, given to more than 205,000 school-aged children.
This year, the National Budget earmarked $11 billion for the programme, consisting of $50,000 per student plus $5000 for uniforms. It was expected to reach around 205,000 beneficiaries.

Steady increases and development
Meanwhile, although Jagdeo did not divulge how much each child would be entitled to, he announced that every year, the $40 billion will be increased, noting that the Government plans to spend more money on children.
“You’re going to hear this weekend how much more every child will get per year. It’s a huge sum of money. When you hear it this weekend, every year you will see the Because We Care grant go up, and also, everyone will get a transport grant so that they can help their parents to pay for the transportation to send them to school. It will cost us, I can tell you, over $40 billion a year to do that. I am not telling you how much it is because the President will announce that, but every year from that initiative alone would be about $40 billion,” Jagdeo disclosed.
He said pensioners too would also receive an increase, in addition to a transportation grant every year.
Additionally, the Government is planning to introduce hot meals to schools and increase public servant and Government part-time worker salaries.
During the next term of the current Government, Jagdeo promised that the backlog of house lot applications will be cleared up.
“In the next term we will make sure that anyone who needs a house lot, once they are eligible and they apply, and then once they get their house lot, we will assist them to build or improve their own homes if they are poor. So we will help people to improve their homes or start building. We will spend a lot of time on building homes in the next year because we want people to have jobs, live in safe communities, have good health care and have proper education – because these are important issues for us.”
The VP explained that the goal is to ensure that in every village, roads are upgraded and concrete drains installed. Apart from that, he said, there will be adequate street lighting and security cameras installed to address security issues.
Jagdeo pointed out that the current administration ensured the liberalisation of telecommunications, causing the cost for internet and bandwidth to fall. Mortgage rates were also lowered by the administration.
“On food prices, in some areas we have been successful, and in other areas we have not been. Prices have been moving up and down, and so it is very hard. Those are the things we have to focus on in the next term,” he noted.
In addition, according to Jagdeo, electricity costs will be slashed in half when the “power plant is completed”.
The gas-to-shore project will see the price for cooking gas locally being reduced significantly.
“I hope that you would be reading about these things because we are putting them down on paper like we did in 2020, and you know once we write this, we are going to deliver – we are not like APNU [A Partnership for National Unity] or AFC [Alliance For Change],” Jagdeo assured.