As the $100,000 cash grant distribution to each Guyanese adult winds down, the Ali administration has no doubt learnt key lessons in relation to the administration of public initiatives.
Decisions should not be taken on a whim and without careful examination, particularly given the scale of what was envisaged. On October 10, 2024, President Ali in an address to a special sitting of Parliament said that each household in the country would receive a one-off payment of $200,000. The payment, he said, would be made “instantaneously”. The projected cost of this allocation was $60b.
Less than a week later, on October 16, the President announced in a Facebook broadcast a radical revision to his previously announced cash grant, saying that instead of the one-off $200,000 per household payment, each adult citizen would receive a one-off cash grant of $100,000. To be eligible, recipients would have to show proof of Guyanese citizenship by way of national identification card or Guyana passport.
The distribution has taken much longer than expected. In an interview with reporters on November 13, 2024, President Ali stated that the cash grant would be paid to most citizens before Christmas, with pensioners and public servants set to receive their payments by the end of November.
“Before the end of the month, the existing datasets for pensioners and public servants will allow their cheques to be cut easily,” Mr Ali said. “This weekend, they will be in Region 9 collecting datasets from Region 9. The hinterland regions we will try to complete as quickly as possible because the coast we can easily work with. Yes… you would get your money before Christmas.”
It, of course, took nearly three months longer.
Roughly 600,000 $100,000 cheques were printed and estimates of collection have been put at upwards of 95%. There had been hiccups in distribution initially and long wait times in some areas but these were eventually straightened out and people were able to uplift their cheques without too much fuss.
The attention should now shift to accountability for this huge $60b programme particularly since it was not a budget 2024 measure but had just been arbitrarily announced by the President. It cannot be said often enough that grants of this nature – made affordable by the oil revenues flowing into the country – should be planned and be based on an agreed percentage of Guyana’s annual profit oil.
On November 27th last year, during the debate in Parliament on supplementary spending, Prime Minister Phillips faced a barrage of questions from opposition members about the $30.5 billion allocated then for the cash grant. He was asked by APNU+AFC MP Volda Lawrence the following, “Could the Prime Minister state whether, out of this $30.5 billion, any amounts will go to administrative costs? Or are you covering administrative costs from another line item?”
Mr Phillips responded as follows: “The disbursement of this money is administered by a ministry, and that ministry works with other ministries throughout the country. They already have their operational budgets, so this figure covers payments going to the people 18 years and above”.
The scale of the operation requires detailed accounting for administrative costs as these would have been staggering. This was a two-stage process with registration coming first followed by distribution of the cheques. Registration centres were set up across the country. These required the deployment of thousands of part-time workers who needed transport to and from the centres, meals, water and a stipend. Centres had to be set up in buildings or under tents. Electricity and sanitation had to be catered for. Furniture had to be acquired or rented and security had to be provided.
Thousands of tablets had to be issued by the government for the logging of registration information and the completion of the distribution cheques.
What about the cost of the 600,000 cheques? These also required processing time by central government and then more transportation and security for issuance to the centres throughout the country. Some centres continue to be in operation for late registration and distribution of cheques.
All of this must be totted up and a statement made available by the Ministry of Finance. The public cannot be made to wait until the 2024 Auditor General’s report is issued which will in any case only capture a small part of the programme since major distribution began in 2025.
If the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament was functioning smoothly and without acrimony one could expect it might have taken an interest in examining the expenditure associated with the programme.
Prudent spending and accountability remain weak points of this administration. The roughly $60b expenditure and the associated administrative costs must be addressed in a formal and transparent manner.
