Grants to adults a better option than to households

Oct 19, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor,

The government is praised for doling out a grant to adult nationals. The distribution of $100K cheques to adults is a better proposal than the $200K grant to households albeit both are fraught with problems. The $100K to every adult may also cost the Treasury more than the $200K, but the former will lessen risks of fraud and skullduggery. Also, defining a household through a utility (electricity, water) bill is fraught with too many problems and the government is right to abandon that idea.

The Vice President presented very good reasons for abrogating the proposal of the $200K grant to every household and its replacement with the $100K grant for every adult. It is extremely difficult in Guyana to identify or even define “a household”.

Thousands of ‘households’ did not receive the $25K grant of 2021. Many individuals (head of households) complain till this day about not getting the grant and have refused to go to court to force the government to give them the essential grant. Any household that did not receive the 2021 grant will win any action filed in court; government will be instructed by the court to give them their legitimate grant. Those who did not receive their grant should consider filing a class action lawsuit; there may be a statute of limitation.

Anyone who studies Anthropology and or Sociology, subjects under which families are studied, would know that a household is very loosely defined. Households are not specifically defined in a traditional society. And Guyana is classified as a traditional society although there are many clearly defined ‘nuclear families’ (households) as in a ‘modern’, industrialized western society as USA. Most households in Guyana have extended or joint families with multiple households in each family sharing the same house or lot. Also, many dwellings have multiple families or rentals with single utilities. Indigenous population and tens of thousands of Africans, Indians, Mixed have extended and joint families with multiple households. Newly married couples may continue living with their families or in-laws; are they not a household? Many families share a home (roof) with in-laws but do their own cooking and maintain their own finances. Are they not households? There are many families that share utility bills with not every name on the bill. Are they not households? There are families who rent with utilities included in the rent. Are they not households?

To give the grant to only one household in a joint or extended family or in a dwelling with multiple families or households is to deny others in the home or in a house lot or dwelling their legitimate deserving grant.

Giving the grant to adults (defined as 18 and above) eliminates the above-mentioned issues. A better option for the grant would have been to distribute it (perhaps a larger amount) according to needs and or some other criteria.

The rich do not care much for the grant, and it would not impact on their lives. Many poor families are hurting badly with rising cost-of-living and utility and medical bills. They need a grant more than the wealthy. Subsidizing utility bills of ‘households’, including funding electricity and potable water to those not currently recipients, increasing the grant to schoolchildren, and allocating a sum of $$$ to each relatively poor family (to be defined by income) for medical (dental) would have been better options.

All options have advantages and disadvantages. Supporting or advocating one over the other would have its detractors or critics.

Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram

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Grants to adults a better option than to households

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