GY$55 a day to Guyanese outrageous, cannot cushion cost-of-living -WPA

Dec 11, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News- The Working People’s Alliance has condemned the government’s $100,000 one off cash grant to citizens, saying it is outrageous and cannot cushion the cost-of-living crisis. The grant works out to around $55 Guyana per day for the five years since Guyana has been pumping oil.

Co-Leader of the WPA, Dr. David Hinds told reporters on Monday that they were shocked when they saw the breakdown of the cash grant. “I think it’s outrageous. We think that it is outrageous.” He explained that the party had a proposal of $1M per household, and at 4 persons per household, this would mean around $240,000 per person, and this would have also included persons under the age of 18 years old. “The second thing is that $55 per day doesn’t help our people mitigate the high cost-of-living… it goes nowhere near helping them to alleviate poverty.

So, if you go by the two things to help with the cost-of-living and to alleviate poverty, $55 per day doesn’t come near to do it, either of the two,” he reasoned. Therefore, the objective the government has come up with is lacking and appears to be more of a political venture, Hinds argued.  He said cash grants are more of a social-economic objective “they may have political spin offs, but your objective has to always be socio economic,” Dr. Hinds said.

He added, “giving cash grants to people to help them to deal with the cost-of-living in the first instance and the second instance, to help to alleviate poverty, and you can’t do that with a one-off cash grant of $55 per day. It just doesn’t cut it.  So WPA finds that the government, as we said, they’ve given cash grants and cash transfers a bad name that can hardly be described as a serious cash grant aimed at helping people to deal with poverty, and to deal with the high cost-of-living.”

The WPA is also challenging the government to conduct a socio-economic audit in order to be able to show how exactly this grant has helped to “mitigate the cost-of-living and how it has helped to decrease poverty.” Government, las week, rolled out the pay-out initiative in Region Nine and has sought to make it the centrepiece of its policy in giving back to citizens.

Speaking in one of his social media commentaries this week, Businessman Glenn Lall, said it is an insult for Guyanese to be receiving GY$54 a day after five years of oil production here.

“After five years of ExxonMobil pumping our oil and walking away with tens of US billions, every Guyanese over 18 is set to receive just one American quarter – 0.25 US cents – a day. Yes, that is what Guyanese worth after five years of pumping oil. That’s right: GY$54 a day.  Fifty-four dollars! That can’t even buy ah ¼ lb. plantain…” Lall, a fierce critic of the lopsided oil contract which the Coalition Government signed with ExxonMobil back in 2016, said. Lall said $100,000, which is less than US$500, is being thrown at Guyanese after the pumping of oil for 1,825 days in this country.

“This is what the government and opposition have reduced all of us to, with that unprecedented oil discovery made in Guyana. And to add more insult to that injury, you have to join three lines, on three different dates, at three separate locations before you can get that $100,000. That is what the PPP is proud of while the PNC and AFC are silent…”

The businessman recalled joining Mr. Ray Daggers, earlier this year, on a protest walk from Moleson Creek in Berbice to Charity on the Essequibo Coast. Lall said it was hoped that more Guyanese would have joined the walk “to overturn that contract, to get what we truly deserve, but just a handful of persons joined in and walked with us. Today, had you raised your voices and marched with us in droves to bring about that change, all Guyanese over 18 would not have had to join three lines at three different times to collect that $100,000.”

He added: “You didn’t have time then to join that walk, but now you finding time to line-up in that hot sun or pouring rain to register as a citizen, then line up again to collect the cheque, then go to the bank to line up again to cash that cheque.”

Telling citizens that they deserve better, Lall said, “This is not what your children deserve and certainly this is not what our ancestors fought for. And until you are ready to stand up and raise that voice to demand a referendum before any elections, so that you and I can decide what deal we want from that oil, $54 or 0.25 US cents a day will be the reality.”

(GY$55 a day to Guyanese outrageous, cannot cushion cost-of-living -WPA)

(GY$55 a day to Guyanese outrageous)

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• 55gyd, Guyanese, Outrageous, WPA

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