CLOSING THE GAP

Apr 15, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

I think there were some very strong points made by the Leader of the Opposition in his presentation to the National Assembly during the Budget debates. Generally, almost all of the presentations from the opposition side of the House lacked alternatives but there were nonetheless some issues raised by the Opposition Leader that deserve greater recognition from the government.
And these can form the basis of political compromise between the two sides.
The first of these issues is the hinterland-coastland divide to which Mr. Granger alluded as being two worlds, one west of the Essequibo River and the other east.
While it is true that there is a great disparity in the allocations in the Budget assigned to the coastland areas as compared with the hinterland regions, this is to be expected. More than eighty per cent of the population of Guyana resides on the coastland and if the Budget is expected to implement measures that meet down to the people, then it is logical that the areas where the bulk of the people reside would naturally have a disproportionate share of overall government spending.
It is true also that there is acute poverty in the hinterland. The last time an income and expenditure survey was done, it confirmed this fact. But since then there has been unprecedented development within the hinterland. It is not as if these areas were neglected.
In fact, as one person recently remarked, there are far more vehicles now in certain hinterland communities than ever before. This, it is said, is a sign of growing prosperity in the interior of the country.
It is most probable, also, that the greatest reduction in poverty since the last income and expenditure survey, would have been achieved in the hinterland. And this has to do with the specific interventions that the government would have made, including school feeding programs and extensive distribution of solar panels which is still an ongoing exercise.
We will have to await the outcome of the next income and expenditure survey but it is most likely that in-so-far as hinterland poverty is concerned there will be a steeper reduction than in other parts of the country.
There is a still a far way to go and Mr. Granger’s comparisons to the spending on the coastland and the hinterland raises another issue: how best can poverty be reduced in the interior?
One approach- and one assumes that this approach is being supported by APNU- is for increased expenditure spending in hinterland areas. And there has been increased spending on infrastructure in the interior. But where poverty is acute, selective interventions are a much better approach than investment in physical infrastructure.
When parents cannot afford to send their children to school in the interior because of the distance they have to travel, then a specific intervention such as the provision of an outboard engine goes a further way to reduce poverty than say an investment in building roads to the gold fields.
When parents in the hinterland cannot send their children to school because they have nothing to put in their lunch kits, then you can appreciate the value of free school lunches which is taking place in many hinterland communities. When children are not doing well in schools because they have no electricity to study when they get home, then you can see the value of the massive investment being made in distributing solar panels to Amerindian communities.
If education is the key to reducing poverty, then specific interventions to ensure children are encouraged to go to school, will lay the basis slashing acute poverty in the hinterland areas.
Since the Opposition Leader has raised the issue of poverty and since it is believed that poverty is most acute in hinterland areas, then perhaps he may wish to negotiate with the government on the $10,000 per student initiative.
Why instead of every child in Guyana receiving this sum, should the entire $2B allocation not be exclusively devoted to the children of hinterland Guyana?
Who knows given the numbers, instead of each child receiving $10,000, they can if the entire $2 billion dollars is set aside, receive about $40,000 each.
Now this direct transfer to the poorest of the poor will make a big difference in reducing poverty in the hinterland. And while at the end of the year there may still be two worlds in Guyana, one would be making giant strides in catching up with the other.

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