The transportation cash grant

Jun 13, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – There was a time when public policy was expected to solve real problems rather than create expensive spectacles. The government’s transportation cash grant for every primary school child is a prime example of a policy that confuses universality with fairness.

When I attended primary school, every child in my class lived within the school’s catchment area. Most of us could reach the school in a matter of minutes without spending a cent.

There were houses on both sides of the school. Children living in those homes simply stepped out of their yards and into the school compound.

One of my closest friends lived directly across the road from the school. Another classmate lived just two houses away.

To get to school, they did not need a bus, taxi, bicycle or boat. They merely had to cross the road or walk through a hole in the fence.

Yet under the government’s policy, if those same children were attending primary school today, each would receive a $20,000 transportation grant. The obvious question is: transportation for what?

The absurdity becomes even clearer when one considers the scale of the programme. Guyana has approximately 77,500 primary schoolchildren, all of whom will receive the same payment regardless of whether they travel twenty metres or twenty miles.

A child who walks across the street receives the same amount as a child who must travel from a distant community. A child whose parents spend nothing receives the same amount as a child whose parents face genuine transportation burdens.

That is not equity. It is the exact opposite of equity.

Public resources should be directed toward those who need assistance most. Instead, the Government has chosen a blanket approach that ignores the realities faced by thousands of families.

Consider the parent who spends as much as $1,500 per day on ordinary bus fares to transport a child to and from secondary school. Such a family can easily spend more than $30,000 in a single month on transportation alone.

For that parent, the annual grant would be exhausted in less than a month. The assistance provided bears little relationship to the actual cost being incurred.

Meanwhile, a wealthy household with multiple luxury vehicles parked in the driveway will receive exactly the same grant. A parent with three high-end motor cars and a Toyota Tundra will line up to collect the same payment as a struggling single mother struggling to get her child to school.

How can that be considered fair? How can anyone seriously describe such a policy as targeted assistance?

The inequity becomes even more glaring when one considers Guyana’s hinterland communities. In many of these areas, children travel long distances by boat and incur transportation costs that far exceed those faced on the coast.

Some families must navigate rivers and waterways simply to ensure their children receive an education. Their transportation challenges are fundamentally different from those faced by children living next door to a school.

Yet the Government has chosen to distribute resources almost as though these differences do not exist. The result is that those with the greatest need receive no meaningful additional support.

The tragedy is that Guyana already had a better model. Former President David Granger understood that access to education often depends on access to transportation.

His response was the “Three Bs” initiative: boats, buses and bicycles. The concept was straightforward, practical and targeted.

Instead of handing out cash indiscriminately, the programme sought to provide transportation solutions to those who actually needed transportation. It recognised that different communities faced different challenges.

A child in the hinterland might require a boat. A child in a rural area might benefit from a bicycle.

Students travelling longer distances could be assisted through school buses. The policy was built around need rather than political optics.

No programme is perfect. The Three Bs initiative undoubtedly required more resources, stronger administration and better management.

Those shortcomings should have been addressed and corrected. They were not reasons to abandon a fundamentally sensible idea.

With adequate investment and competent implementation, the Three Bs could have evolved into a truly national transportation policy. It could have provided meaningful support to families facing genuine transportation challenges while avoiding wasteful spending on those who required no assistance.

Instead, the government has chosen to spend billions of dollars on a universal transportation grant that often has little connection to actual transportation costs. It is a policy that rewards proximity as generously as hardship.

The result is a massive misallocation of public resources. Money that could have transformed transportation access for secondary school students and hinterland communities is being distributed to thousands who have no transportation expense whatsoever.

Good public policy is not measured by the number of people who receive a cheque. It is measured by whether public funds are directed to solving real problems.

The transportation cash grant fails that test. It is simultaneously absurd, inequitable and wasteful.

Guyana deserves a transportation policy based on need, practicality and common sense. The Three Bs pointed in that direction, and with the necessary resources and management, it remains a far better model than the costly and misguided transportation cash grant now being celebrated.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• cash grant, Peeping Tom, primary school child, transportation

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