Latest update May 25th, 2026 12:35 AM
Relief monies
Kaieteur News – The PPP Government could compose a symphony of the billions it had thoughtfully set aside to provide urgent cash relief for Guyanese in farming areas, hit hard by heavy flooding, and almost totally dependent on agriculture. The same was done to aid all of Guyana to cushion the piercing effects of the global pandemic, now firmly established here. Similarly, a huge sum was allocated for the purchase of vaccines from a supplier in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On the surface, these developments involving heavy national expenditures, sound good and look good. Let there be no misunderstanding: as announced, they are good in terms of the difference they made in the lives of Guyanese families struggling to cope with one crisis following on the heels of the other.
But that is the good news only, and what it shields is a world of ugliness. The usual local ineptness and crookedness, that accompanies what rings with promise. The bad news is that, below the surface of the numbers and statistics and comparisons energetically broadcast by the Government and its people, there is the other side of relief monies being doled out, which this newspaper has been in the forefront of bringing to the attention of the public. It is this slimy underbelly of Guyana that, even in a time of severe distress and community and countrywide anxieties, our fellow citizens are being ripped off by either government or party agents.
We take the easier one first, which would be COVID-19 cash relief billions. The positive is that many Guyanese in need of that helpful $25,000 have received it. The negative, which the PPP Government prefers not to hear about, is how its people have distorted and disgraced objectives behind the relief funds, which was to furnish a little timely assistance in an hour of need. But Government and party crooks are so saturated through and through with corrupt ambitions, corrupt instincts, and corrupt practices that even pandemic money is not beyond taking some for themselves.
More than a few have never been visited by the distribution teams, never collected any cash. The so-called ‘pink slip people’. Those who are renting are still waiting. They have filled out the required forms months ago, and months ago, no less a figure than Guyana’s Honourable Prime Minister vowed that they will be taken care of with competence and finality. They are still waiting. But the first big batch of billions is paid, and some who could use that $25,000, still wait in vain. It is as if the people with ‘pink slips’ have been fired from cash relief consideration. Guyana’s weak Opposition made some passing noise about corruption, and that was it. The business of Guyana continues in the same criminal ways, as usual.
As usual, it is the same sorry story, regarding flood relief funds. In Berbice and Demerara, angry Guyanese are making their voices heard at high volume, and in no uncertain manner. It is that the flood relief distribution process is riddled with fraud and corruption, with some getting much more than they are entitled, and some left totally out in the cold, as in not getting anything, and left without anything to help them tide over a tough time. These people are staring disaster in the face, actually living with it, and government friends and operators seize the opportunity to make a financial killing, and suck the blood out of these struggling citizens. The irony is that many of them voted for the same party, whose cronies and handpicked public servants are taking for themselves, what is due to the suffering. Other than for quick, polite sounds, neither Government officials nor party people nor party propagandists are saying anything. It is one big family having a sweet time with cash cook-up.
Last, the vaccines from the UAE were sourced from suspicious people, and alarms about price collusions came and went swiftly. Now Guyanese who received the Russian doses cannot enter the United States. Obviously, the focus is always on short-term personal gain, and no vision that positions this country to take this society forward positively. Whether cash relief or oil, this is Guyana’s story.
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