Guyana Budget 2022: Govt hikes School Uniform and Cash grants for children

Georgetown, Guyana: The government of Guyana in Budget 2022 has increased the allocation amount from $4,000 to $5,000 for each youngster under the ‘Uniform Grants for School Children.’

This will place $200 million of disposable income in the homes of 200,150 children who are studying both in private and public educational institutions.

Guyanese government further announced that “Because We care cash grant’, for the school children has also been hiked in this year’s budget, from $15,000 to $25,000 per child. This will put an additional amount of $2 billion in the homes of the same 200,150 children of both private and public schools.

Meanwhile, in Budget 2022, the government of the Caribbean island announced to extend the freight cost adjustment, noting that, “In the month of August last year, there was an adjustment to the freight cost component in the CIF value used for the calculation of import taxes, rolling back the freight cost to the levels before the COVID pandemic emerged”.

“This had the effect of reducing the import duties, excise taxes, and VAT charged on the imported items. Initially, this measure was due to expire on January 31, 2021, and now will be extended to December 31, 2022, which is likely to cost $6 billion.”

In addition, a total of $600,000 per annum will be spent on dialysis treatment. The monthly public assistance payment has also been increased to $14,000 from $12,000, which will benefit at least 18,000 Guyanese people, providing an additional $r432 million in disposable income to these individuals.

Apart from this, the government is also increasing the old-age pensions by $3,000, that is, from $25,000 to $28,000. This will be putting an additional $2.3 billion of the disposable income in the hands of around 65,000 old-age pensioners.

Under the budget 2022, President Dr Irfaan Ali led-administration has also pledged to provide electricity for around 30,000 homes in Hinterlands.