A New United Guyana (ANUG), a Member of the Parliamentary Joinder, has called on the government to be more transparent and accountable in its cash grant distribution, while arguing that the current method for disbursal of the $25,000 COVID-19 cash relief, the education cash grants, and the various flood relief grants is a haphazard recipe for disaster.
In a statement issued last Tuesday, the party suggested that government should make use of a structured welfare system rather than withdrawing millions of taxpayer funds from unknown accounts, converting it to $5,000 and $1,000 bills, putting that cash into hundreds of thousands of envelopes to be entrusted to hundreds of ministry employees to deliver to several hundred thousand individuals, government should instead make use of a structured welfare system.
“The rules and parameters of entitlement should be available for all to see, and should be implemented through the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and other structural government institutions, with real accountability and less scope for corruption, favouritism and politicizing. The beneficiaries should be able to go to the post office or to the National Insurance Offices and show their documents and receive their payments. Businesses and farmers who claim benefits should have those benefit offset against their income tax declarations in future years,” the party suggested.
ANUG reminded that according to Constitutional Guidelines, Guyana’s revenue should only be spent following a clear accounting in the National Assembly, arguing that in cases where the executive controls the assembly there is no real accountability.
“Accountability… takes place in the Parliamentary debate. Theoretically, no expense should be
possible without the prior debate, approval and budgeting by Parliament, unless in emergencies, when a supplementary budget must be presented to Parliament to explain how the emergency money was spent by the Minister of Finance. Of course, if government controls Parliament… the government will pass the budget it chooses but at least it must disclose the entire budget in Parliament, so there should be no secrets,’ the statement explained.
Noting that the Irfaan Ali has so far announced four different cash grants for citizens, the party laments the fact that the public has not heard of any account for that expenditure to ensure the monies were properly distributed with no corruption or inefficiency. They also claim that it is unclear where this unprecedented cash expenditure was budgeted, and when it was laid before Parliament, or if it was paid as an emergency from a supplementary fund.
Stabroek News has, however, previously reported that the government in June approached the National Assembly for more than $23 billion in order to cover several expenses, including those related to the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines and flooding.
At the time, Minister with responsibility for Finance Ashni Singh presented two financial papers to the House, one of which requested sums for flood relief under the Office of the Prime Minister’s disaster preparedness, response and management programme.
This programme, which was provided $5 million in the 2021 budget for current expenditure, requested and received an additional $10 billion for the provision of flood relief intervention, including repairs to infrastructure and supporting recovery in the productive sector and households.
So far President Ali has announced relief grants in excess of $7 billion including $3.5 billion in handouts to those in the agriculture sector who had suffered losses in floods.
ANUG also asked the same question of the COVID-19 cash grant, which was approved under the Old Age Pension and Social Assistance Programme of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security. A $2.5 billion bolster to these funds were part of $8.9 billion current expenditure requested three days before the close of the 2020 fiscal year, while the “Because We Care” education cash grant is a budgeted expenditure under the Ministry of Education.
The party has also reminded that an important device for accountability is the Auditor General (AG), who is authorised to access all public books and records of accounts and to audit all public accounts of Guyana.
“It is unclear whether the expenditure has been audited by the Auditor General or anyone at all… the public has not heard of any account for that expenditure to ensure the monies were properly distributed with no corruption or inefficiency,” it stressed before calling on the Auditor General to investigate and to inform the public of his findings on the system of cash distribution, and the checks and balances, and of any discrepancies which he found.
Stabroek News had also reported Minister of Human Services and Social Protection Vindhya Persaud telling the National Assembly that the COVID-19 cash grant is being distributed through the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development.
Each Regional Executive Officer (REO), she explained, is tasked with compiling a list of households and making a request for support from the central government. Once the information submitted by the various REOs is verified, the funds are transferred to the Region and the REO is tasked with the creation of a transparent accounting system for distribution.
At the end of each distribution exercise the team is charged with submitting a report to the REO, who compiles them into a larger report for submission to the Ministry of Local Government.
Additionally the AG has already been directed by President Ali to conduct a special audit of the grant and the Public Accounts Committee has announced the intention to add its own weight to those requests.
ANUG executive Timothy Jonas acknowledged these efforts as reported by the newspaper but pointed out that Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha, one day after ANUG’s statement, announced an investigation into the distribution of the flood-relief funds.
“The timing suggests that there is merit to ANUG’s request,” he told this newspaper.
Mustapha, who on Monday labelled opposition criticism of the cash grant distribution as noise, has since announced an investigation of claims that persons not entitled to flood-relief grants had been listed to benefit.
“When this process commenced, I made it very clear that anyone found guilty of malpractices or ‘padding the list’ so to speak would be dealt with. We also made an appeal to farmers to be honest because this is taxpayers’ monies we are dealing with and we cannot be reckless, but it seems as though persons didn’t heed to our warning and now we have to take a step back to carry out an investigation to see if there is any truth to these allegations,” Mustapha announced.
“We cannot continue in some regions… because of these claims, we have to review and redo some areas which are resulting in delays in the entire process but we have to ensure things are done the right way,” Mustapha clarified, adding that the Ministry will need to be provided with evidence of misconduct on the part of recipients and the extension officers who were tasked with investigating claims.
This is not enough for ANUG as the party has called on the government to design, legislate, and implement a permanent systemic and transparent rules-based structure of entitlement for welfare and cash relief which creates a structure everyone can understand.
