The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has unveiled yet another shallow election-time promise: a transportation cash grant for school children if it wins the 2025 General and Regional Elections. But this isn’t a serious policy. It’s a gimmick,one that insults the intelligence of the Guyanese people and attempts to buy votes with hollow handouts.
Unashamedly, the PPP/C is dangling crumbs in front of struggling families, hoping that short-term relief will erase long-term betrayal. But Guyanese know better. This is not about helping children, it’s about salvaging political favour.
The irony is sharp. The very government that now claims to care about school transportation actively destroyed one of the most successful school-support programmes in recent history: the 5B Programme—Buses, Bicycles, Boats, Books, and Breakfast—launched under the David Granger/Moses Nagamootoo APNU+AFC administration (2015–2020).
That initiative didn’t promise. It delivered. Even without the oil billions now flowing through the national treasury, the 5B Programme provided real support to schoolchildren across Guyana. It got children to school. It kept them there. It gave them a fair chance.
And what did the PPP/C do upon returning to power? They dismantled it.
School buses were left to rot. Boats used to ferry children across rivers were pulled from service. Bicycles donated to help students in far-flung communities were abandoned. No replacements. No enhancements. Just calculated destruction—all because the programme didn’t bear the PPP’s name.
Now, with elections approaching, the party wants to offer a few thousand dollars and pretend it’s a solution? That’s not policy. That’s punishment disguised as progress.
In fact, it is nothing short of Punishing Poor People’s Children—and the acronym couldn’t be more appropriate. Time and again, the PPP/C has shown that it would rather sabotage a working system than credit another government’s success. And it’s the children, once again, who suffer.
This transportation cash grant is no solution. It’s a scam—a pipeline to benefit friends, families, and favourites. It offers no structure, no sustainability, and no accountability. It’s not a vision. It’s a vote-buying scheme with zero ambition for lasting change.
The political opposition must rise to this moment. Now is the time to call out the con. Show the ruined buses, the neglected boats, the discarded bikes. Share the real cost—financial and human—of the PPP/C’s vindictive governance. Run the ads. Tell the truth. Let families see what was stolen from their children.
This is not just poor governance. It is the weaponisation of poverty, using children’s needs as campaign bait. And Guyana cannot afford another round of deception and destruction.
We don’t need gimmicks-we need leadership. We don’t need promises—we need performance.
Guyana deserves better. Our children deserve better. What the country needs is not another cash trick, but bold, thoughtful investment in systems that work.
No more short-term politics. No more playing games with the future. It’s time for a government that delivers—not destroys.
