The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime appears to have a visionless, ad hoc policy of cash handouts that is doomed to fail. The government’s approach will fail for three reasons: the handouts are discriminatory, unsustainable, and cannot result in personal self-sufficiency nor community development.
The PPP launched its cash handout programme with the COVID-19 and flood relief schemes. From day one every Guyanese could discern the obvious pattern: supporters of the PPP benefited while non-supporters got next to nothing. Additionally, because the PPP is supported mainly by Indo-Guyanese while Afro-Guyanese support the Coalition, Indo-citizens got money as Afro-citizens were left holding pink slips.
Trade unionist and political analyst Lincoln Lewis wrote, “Look at the cash grants distribution. The [predominantly Afro-Guyanese] public servants, who carry the nation’s tax burden, have not only been denied wage and salary increase for 2020 and 2021 but are being excluded from the other cash grant, whereas farmers, i.e., which is part of the business community [comprised of mostly Indo-Guyanese], are benefitting twice.
Once, as recipients of the $25,000 COVID-19 grant. Now twice, as businesses that suffered losses from the floods. They are earmarked to receive payment in the tens and hundreds of thousands. Regions Two, Five, Six, Seven and Ten were classified at a Level Three Disaster by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. Regions One, Three, Four, Eight and Nine were classified at Level Two. We need no bird to whisper in our ear how the affected in Regions Four, Seven and Ten are being denied because they are considered supporters of the main opposition.”
Next came the PPP’s $250,000 handout to severed sugar workers. The total bill amounted to some $2 billion. Both economists, former finance minister Winston Jordan and Dr. Clive Thomas labelled the plan discriminatory. Jordan said, “It is well known that the sugar workers [who will get the money] not only received their severance in full but they were also paid every benefit that was owed to them.” Dr. Thomas said, “the plan by the PPP Government is very discriminatory and it undermines the effectiveness of cash transfers.” Of course, no need to mention the ethnic makeup of Guyana’s sugar workers and where their political loyalty lies.
As the cash handout mania to its supporters continues in the corridors of PPP power — rice farmers and fisherfolk have now been added to the lot — one may examine the effects. First, the biased, unbalanced, blatantly discriminatory nature of the disbursements can only serve to further divide an already polarised populace. Perhaps, some may speculate, that the PPP deliberately intends to deepen that division; Maybe, ruling by division is the PPP’s objective. Some observers speculate, too, the the PPP is in the process of buying votes; local government elections are overdue.
Last May/June as a Local Government Election effort to buy votes they disbursed cash grants in various forms.
What of the economic effect of the handouts? To answer that question we may examine what has happened in other territories. A cash handout programme was implemented targeting youths in Uganda. The Economic Policy Research Centre — a respected think tank — reported that, “Key among the challenges is political influence which interfered with the operations of the scheme; corruption; inadequate implementation-preparation, poor selection of enterprises to be funded; inadequate operational funds etc; moreover, the timing of these youth interventions has been ad hoc largely coinciding with the buildup of elections. As such most youth groups have viewed these schemes as political gifts.
Rosa Pavanelli is General Secretary of Public Services International (PSI) and chair of the Council of Global Unions. Ms. Pavanelli wrote, “Studies do demonstrate is that giving cash payments to the poorest helps improve their lives, [however], government spending is inevitably about choices – and compared to funding better universal quality public services, [handouts don’t] stack up. Providing a single mother with a cash payment to fend for herself in an inflated housing market is not as effective as providing quality public housing. Giving people more money to fill up their cars is not as progressive as offering free public transport.”
As the PPP regime stumbles from one failed policy to another, the administration may need to be reminded of at least two facts. First: division stymies national development. As such, if the PPP has any interest in Guyana’s development and the welfare of its citizens, the regime needs to stop promoting or implementing any policy that would foster or encourage further division. Second, one-off cash handouts are bandaids; they do not result in long term solutions. Further, even continuous, regular handouts are not the answer because such handouts tend to encourage a syndrome of dependency while fuelling inflation. Instead of bandaids, the PPP regime should be thinking of ways to make Guyanese productive and self-sufficient. The PPP needs to re-examine its short-sighted policies, and make the necessary changes.
