Dear Editor,
I loved the cash grant. Psst: didn’t collect, so the past tense (loved) has to do with the announcement made with a clatter of chariots, fanfare of bugles, and then…. Sitting and waiting and wishing and hoping, even a little dreaming too. I know it is not the soft, smooth crooning of Dionne Warwick, but that was and is where all Guyanese found themselves. Both those who qualified and those who don’t. So, the questions come automatically: what’s up with dat app? So wha happen to de cash? Is weh it deh, Prezzy, Dr. VeePee? I give Comrade Ashni a breather because he is busy putting the final touches at the ministry to this app. Let us all hope that it does not have a worm in it. It is my hope.
Dr. Listening and Defining (we heard the people, we are expanding) moved from $200k to $100k. None of the top dogs in the PPP Government got careless or reckless and thoughtlessly placed the letters US in front of the final dollar amount and sign. Where is the cash Excellency Ali? For here I am, asking that question on behalf of crimped and cramped Guyanese almost in the middle of November. By way of introduction they are those unknowns, the poor people of Guyana. The lost and left limping by the marketplace, who dread looking at supermarket displays. Price labels force them to turn their faces away. In disappointment. In pain. In a bit of shame, too. The richest reduced to the weakest.
By my calculation, the essence of simplicity, December is coming up fast, so when are Guyanese who don’t have going to get that ‘little something frum de guvment’ to do their little buying for the holidays? I know all too well that the PPP Government and leadership are callous, but neither is so barbarous to push struggling Guyanese to do their shopping on Christmas Eve Day. Here is another of my vaunted computations and projections of today. For by the time that Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo (Ministry of Finance App) is ready, Guyanese will be ready for either the poor house or the madhouse. This app has traveled a long road to date: from mystery to macabre to mayhem. Who the hell in the PPP Government knows what is going on with this cash grant? Or is the real story that what they know is not for public consumption? With Ali and Ashni and Barry locals may not know. I do, though; and that is usually right in most assessments of that unholy trinity that is such a national beauty.
The longer that the $100k cash grant takes to get into the hands of citizens who need it the most, the less it is about economic relief and more about election maneuvers. Counting from the date of Excellency Ali’s portentous and stentorian delivery (please permit me treating myself) to Excellency Jagdeo’s poisoned apple (ministry app), this $100k is taking on the appearance of forbidden fruit. The first warning was when Dr. Jagdeo reassured his captive audience that he and his government are working hard to deliver a clean payout program. It is around such moments that I switch channels, hustle to find another radio station. Jagdeo and clean program? Bless his thoughtful, careful heart! But I knew the fix was in when Ali ventured into what I concluded to be sacrilegious territory: he and his PPP Guvment heard the people and listened to them. It was about the shouts over who geh leff out and must geh put in. The country must be on a trajectory of glory when men like Ali and Barry find the time, have the care, to listen to the people. Even Cheddi had his lapses on that score, but not these two.
I shorten this. Cost-of-living is cruel and crippling. The clarion call from Ali about this cash and the wily productions from Bharrat just made Guyanese existence crueler, more crippling. Forget about creating dependency. Think of psychological torture from the PPP, Ali, Ashni and Bharrat.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall