Guyanese being forced to ‘beg in lines’ for handouts as Govt. refuses to increase wages – Shadow Finance Minister

Aug 16, 2023 News

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Kaieteur News – Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) and Shadow Minister of Finance, Juretha Fernandes has called out the Government of Guyana (GoG) for failing to increase the salaries of public servants and instead offering cash handouts in a “corrupt” process.

During a recent interview with Kaieteur News, the MP argued that Guyanese are being forced to line up in the scorching heat to “beg” government for assistance as the cost of living continues to take a toll on poor families especially.

“Guyanese are lining the streets to collect these monies because people are in absolute poverty as it is right now. People have to decide whether to feed themselves or their families two or one meal per day so people are lining the streets for these monies because they are in desperate need but the PPP is utilizing a technique that is the most corrupt,” Fernandes said.

She continued, “The handouts they are giving to Guyanese, it is the most corrupt practice I have ever seen. You have persons going with bags with cash on a boat to the hinterland for example. You have persons walking around with a book bag with cash into communities in the capital city. It is the most reckless way of cash distribution one can ever think of but this is the way in which the PPP operates.”

The Shadow Minister of Finance explained that she does not believe the cash grants are intended to benefit the population but rather a scheme to benefit the government’s cronies.

Fernandes recalled that during the distribution of ‘flood relief’ grants distributed to farmers in 2021 following severe floods across the country, concerns were flagged regarding persons who have never farmed receiving assistance.

This process reportedly involved an assessment of the damages and later compensation by the government. The Guyana Chronicle reported that one farmer benefitted from a cheque of $1.4 million, while another received $50,000 for his losses. The State entity reported that $7.6 billion was allocated to the exercise.

Fernandes argued, “When we had the cash grant for the flood relief, even the persons in their strong holds were calling things out like people who never ever grow any bit of crop in their life their names are on the list to collect grants so it is swamped with corruption.”

Likewise, she believes the cash grant distribution by the Ministry of Education too lacked transparency. “We had persons coming to say there was real time auditing of the systems so they were getting away from doing an audit by saying oh we had real time auditing but the truth is that we have no capacity in our country to do real time audits of any system like that and sending two or three people at couple places to say whether or not the system appears to be smooth is okay. That is not the way in which it is done,” she noted.

To this end, the Shadow Finance Minister pointed out that Guyana is now in a position where it can improve the salaries of the people working in the country; this would avoid them being left “at government’s mercy” according to her.

In November last year, President Irfaan Ali announced a pay hike of eight percent across the board for public servants. The announcement was met with widespread criticisms, especially since it was prefaced by a meager seven percent in 2021.

Just last month, Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton during a rally in Georgetown told his supporters that although Guyana has been dubbed the fastest growing economy on Earth, the country’s people are still living under extreme poverty with government’s refusal to pay livable wages.

Norton said, “Is it not interesting that we are boasting that we are the fastest growing economy in the World and poverty increasing faster? You just have to walk Regent Street in the night and there are more people living on the paves on Regent Street than people living in houses on Regent Street and we are the fastest growing economy.”

He told the gathering that measures can be taken to reduce the cost of living and poverty levels in the country; however, the Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo for instance believes that increasing public servant wages will result in inflation. To this end, he explained, “That is only true if you don’t increase production, but if you increase wages and producing more goods and services, the money will be able to absorb it and not result in inflation so we mustn’t be fooled…”

The Opposition believes that Guyana presently has the resources needed to ensure its people enjoy a better life.

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• corruption, grants, handouts, poverty, wages

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