Relief money – where it went in US

Jul 19, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

I read or observe Guyana’s President sharing out cash, as if he is some combination of a pork-knocker in town, a sailor onshore, and a diaspora member visiting the homeland. Sugar workers, fisherfolk, farmers, and recently the Indigenous have been beneficiaries, among others. I said before, and I say again that those targeted exercises provided relief. The minimum wagers got a bump, which also did a little something to ease their plight. Today, I speak nothing of temporary, or billion-dollar covers for more massive corruptions (cash), or stopgap, or herky-jerky, harum-scarum, jack-in-the-box measures. I simply say they meant something to the recipients, and a word of thanks is due President and PPP Government for actions initiated.

Editor, my position has been that this society is better served with a comprehensive package that is national in scope and significance. It touches all, could mean something. I am supportive of a programme that has means testing as a criterion. But this partial and segmented approach gives rise to all manner of speculations, intensifies divisions, and points to bolstering the ruling party for elections, especially when targeted regional assistance is considered. Due recognition is given to the Guyanese version of all politics is local, as in distinctively racial. That aside, multitudes of locals are hurting badly from the Great Global Supply Chain Crisis, with rising prices almost all over, including local farm product prices. Guyanese need help; more pointedly, poor Guyanese need such help urgently, as it is a daily struggle to make ends meet for too many, and with many having to do without essentials.

With this in mind, I suggest that national leader, ruling party, and government all get familiar with the American Rescue Plan Act of a year ago, to appreciate what was involved, and how extensive that relief package was for those who qualified. As examples, there was US$410B for stimulus, US$352B for families, and US$242B for unemployment. The package was for around US$1.8 trillion, which means that about half of the monies approved went to households in some channel or the other. I have some issues with elements in the package, such as the size and length of its unemployment provisions, but relative to its reach, it was national and far. Whatever the justified criticisms of this Rescue Plan, it did intend and actually delivered help to those who needed; sometimes more than was necessary, given that some prefer not to work, and there is a clamour for a perpetual child credit.

But to repeat: one of the few positive things that President Biden and Democrats have made possible. has meant some good for most Americans during a rough time. It is something along these lines, appropriately scaled naturally that I believe could make a difference in the lives of Guyanese dragging by their bottoms to get by in a country awash in the contradiction of record economic growth and fantastic GDP. It would have been helpful if this year’s national budget did evidence such an emphasis on the immediate welfare of the people, as opposed to many big projects and the big expectations/promises/deliveries to big business. When an examination of what was earmarked for specific areas and others beside the struggling, it is clear that there was a pronounced tilt to those who were to benefit directly, and then again indirectly through awards for public works projects under various agencies of the State. The big losers were pensioners, lower-level workers, and the people who prop up the entirety of the social infrastructure, from nurses to teachers to other public officers.

As mentioned, some of the walking wounded (fishers, harvesters) got some ease; but the rest were left to their own devices.
I appreciate that relief monies usually serve as camouflage for pork and thievery, both of which I believe materially graced every aid announcement issued by the President. Amid that, and adjacent to those norms, something substantial would still have wended its way into the hands and pockets, stomachs also, of the many Guyanese to whom it would have meant the most. I close by putting this gentle reminder in the public domain. Guyana’s President and PPP Government must remember that either or both stand not as Field Marshals of this or that sector (alone), or one region or the next (only), but for a nation, a country, a society, a people. Goodbye!

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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