‘Whatever Ali promised, he will deliver’ – Jagdeo hints at Christmas cash grant

Oct 03, 2025 News

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(Kaieteur News) – Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday hinted at a cash grant for Christmas, giving assurance that President Irfaan Ali will deliver on the promises made during the lead up to the 2025 general and regional elections.

At his first press conference since the People’s Progressive Party (PPPC) was re-elected to office, Jagdeo sought to assure reporters that “Whatever the President said on the campaign trail will be done.”

Jagdeo declined to state whether the cash grants will be distributed in time for Christmas only stating that his party makes good on all its promises.

Earlier this week, Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat said that giving citizens cash transfers from oil funds is a failed model, and if the government focuses on this Guyana will end up poorer than it started.

“It’s a failed model. It’s a model that does not work in any part of the world. Now let’s look at a few countries. Let’s look at the US. Many of these people who have called for cash transfer, most some of them live in the US.” He explained that a lot of these persons live in the United States, and he would like them to tell him if cash transfers are offered to citizens in the US, even though it is one of the most powerful countries on earth. “The US produces probably the most oil in the world among oil producing countries. I’ve never heard of any cash transfer in the US, Qatar. I’ve never heard of any cash transfer in Qatar, the UAE, which is Dubai…I’ve never heard of any cash transfer given. Look at Ghana, look at Angola, and those African countries that produce oil,” he said.

“Who will go to school after that? Because if I’m a student and I’m a Guyanese, I would say I’m collecting our money. Why should I go to school? Why should I study? Why should I get degree? Why should I go work? Because I’m collecting this money. So, it’s the culture, is the culture that we create, or the culture behind that,” the minister reasoned.

Minister Bharrat explained that it will not be an incentive and it will be short-lived, resulting in the country being in a worst state than when it started producing oil. “Oil and Gas will end at some point in time, and that is why we have used the revenue from oil and gas sector to continue building out forestry, mining, manufacturing, ecotourism, construction and the new sectors that are emerging now, agriculture expanding because we know we have to prepare for after-oil, like Dubai did, and we have seen their success. So, these are resources that don’t last forever,” the minister reminded.

“We will end up poorer than where we start from. It simply means that we will end up with a country with people who are not educated because they didn’t see the need to go to school and for their education and to study and to build a professional career, because they’re receiving these cash transfers, and the people who have not invested in businesses and who are not working, and we will simply have a country where expats and foreigners will dominate, obviously, because our locals are just sitting back and waiting on their cash transfer at the end of the month,” Bharrat stressed.

Notwithstanding, the minister clarified that the government does intend to provide cash transfers, but emphasised that, as President Irfaan Ali has stated, this is not the only way the administration plans to spend oil revenues.

Meanwhile, on Thursday Vice President Jagdeo, when asked about minister Bharrat’s utterance said he noticed “the injustice” against the minister.

“…he said something to the effect that cash transfers or a failed model, and then a number of hostile forces to us, extended the meaning of that to mean that, to create the interpretation that we are backing away from all the commitments we made in the election period and before the election period. So, the model for development of our families, individuals, that is Guyanese families or a country does not focus only on cash transfer,” the Vice President said.

He explained that cash transfers are not the entire development model, but rather an aspect of the model, and his government has made it clear that it is investing in every citizen.

The Vice President explained that citizens will benefit from greater opportunities like having access to a high-quality education, from kindergarten all the way to university, while pointing to the increase in investments in the education sector from $53B to $185B over the last year.

“…we have moved to do a number of things, pay for exams, make university education free, more scholarships all of these, we’re going to give parents more choices in these next five years. The Digital School upgrading the curriculum, using AI, ensuring that we can personalise the curriculum for individual kids based on their aptitude at different ages, because that changes, a lot of that work is being done now. We’re going to continue ensuring that we pay for scholarships for people. We’re going to be assisting families now with the transportation grant and all those other things, school feeding programmes, enhancing the quality of it, all of these things, we promise that’s one element of the model, if you can invest in people through education, then you can ensure long term sustainability,” he said.

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, cash grant, Christmas, Irfaan Ali, Vickram Bharrat

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