I was missing last week because of illness. A flu hit me to the extent that I couldn’t even bring myself to sit by a computer for long hours. I fought it with all the local remedies. I used lemon juice with some salt for the cough.
I used bush tea as prescribed by my neighbour—lemon grass, zeb grass and some other that I can’t remember.
I am back and just in time to look at what is happening in my dear country. As has been expected, the government was never keen to provide financial relief to the beleaguered people of Guyana. Last year, ahead of the elections there was the promise of a second cash grant.
The year before, 2024, the government announced its first cash grant distribution amidst some confusion. It started out as a grant to households. The experts said that this was not thought out because there was no definition of a household.
In Guyana the nuclear family is real. There are many households in a home. Without a survey and with the census under wraps the government quickly dropped the idea of the grant to households. It decided that it would give the grant to every Guyanese over 18.
The grant did not materialize in 2024. It was not until the middle of 2025 and a few weeks before the elections that that grant became a reality. Some people smiled. They were hooked like fish.
A shrewd Irfaan Ali decided to announce another cash grant. He told the people that they would get the money if they behaved themselves. He promised them a bright Christmas. They must have misbehaved, because they got nothing. They were shocked and stunned.
But in the euphoria of the promise they had voted for the PPP in the elections. The promise of money also caused them to vote for the new kid on the block—Azruddin Mohamed and his We Invest in Nationhood.
I had said this before. People did not think. As Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo once said, Guyana has a lot of stupid people. There had been no budgetary allocation to allow for a cash grant but they fell for the lure of easy money.
That is now history. A week ago President Irfaan Ali announced that the cash grant was not sustainable. A while back I made a series of comments on the money being shunted to the Guyana Sugar Corporation.
GuySuCo should have been producing tons of sugar by now. Instead the promise of reopened sugar estates, the redevelopment of the sugar refining programme, and the talk of mechanizing the industry have not materialized.
It became a case of the government pouring money down a black hole. The concept of money going down a black hole so incensed some government people and others that they went so far as to call my employer at the time, Brian Tiwarie, to ask that I remove the offending comment from an article I had written.
The government never considered the money to GuySuCo to be unsustainable. There are many reasons being offered for this. Sugar workers represent a sizeable portion of the PPP voting population. Another is that the largest active trade union represents the sugar workers and it is embedded in the PPP.
Its leader is a member of the PPP Central Committee. The union benefits extensively from the dues paid by the sugar workers. It is in the interest of the PPP to ensure that the coffers of the union maintain a healthy balance.
Whether they produce or not, the sugar workers get their grant. The same does not apply to the rest of the nation.
A sentiment accredited to the father of Azruddin Mohamed suggested that black people only crave money but do not want to work. This is a common view in the country and among supporters of the government. The Works Minister is on record as saying that the migrant Venezuelan population wants to work so these migrants work for cheap.
The result is that many black youths, having failed academically, simply cannot enter the labour market. The effect is being felt. And even those who have spent years qualifying themselves are being shut out.
The ranks of black contractors have been drastically reduced. Highly qualified black engineers have been shunted out of the Guyana Electricity Corporation and from the company that replaced Wartsila. Those who had contracts are not being considered as they should.
With the ranks of the unemployed consisting predominantly of black youths it is not surprising that so many black youths have turned to a life of crime. And many are dying violently.
Recently there was a 13-year-old who was shot during the commission of a robbery. He should have been in school but he was not.
There are the executing style killings. A motorist was shot in the head, a motorcyclist was killed in Bare Root and the list goes on.
The cost of living is rising; the salaries are not improving so many families are short on food. Children are choosing not to go to school either because of embarrassment or because they simply cannot afford the cost of transportation.
The vicious cycle continues.
Cash grants are not sustainable but can one say that rising poverty is sustainable? Budget Day is Monday January 26, 2026. There will be the announcement of pay increases. The government officers will also benefit. The reality is that they would get the lion’s share. The gap between the haves and the have nots will widen.
The situation that exists will not change.
