Guyana: President Irfaan Ali announces $200,000 one-off cash grant for households

The government of Guyana announced a one-off cash grant of two hundred thousand dollars for the households. Steps are also taken to reduce the cost of electricity by fifty per cent by the end of the year 2025. The information was shared by the President of the nation, Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, on Thursday, 10 October.

The announcement came during the appearance of President Irfaan Ali at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre during the special sitting of the National Assembly. It was mentioned that around sixty billion dollars of disposable income would be injected into the economy of the nation.

The one-off cash grant by the government of Guyana is a response taken to tackle the escalating financial strain and rising cost of living. It is also said that the step is also taken under the commitment to the welfare of the people, along with the aim to increase disposable income for the citizens.

While following the vision, the current government removed more than two hundred different taxes and fees, including VAT on electricity, water, food items, and excise on fuel. With these steps in the last few times, it is calculated that the consumer citizens of Guyana saved more than ninety billion dollars annually.

In the previous year, the government allocated a cost of living grant of a total of five billion dollars dedicated to the members of the disciplined services, public servants, and teachers. In December 2023, one-time tax-free cash grant of twenty-five thousand dollar was given to semi-autonomous agencies staff, and public enterprises staff, at total of around 1.7 billion dollars.

President Irfaan Ali said in the assembly, “This is how we are promoting prosperity, ownership, distribution of wealth. This is how the resources and revenue of this country are being spent every single day to lift the lives of people and to expand national wealth, coastal wealth, and community wealth. This is what the Civic government is about.”

The President of Guyana also mentioned the reduction in the cost of electricity and said, “This is an injection of US$250 million by the government of Guyana that will positively impact disposable income by the reduction in the cost of electricity. That is more than $50 billion back in the pockets of the Guyanese people. This is where the revenue is going.”

He added, “During the period 2015-2019, GPL struggled with insufficient inventory to effectively execute its planned network expansion and maintenance programme. With respect to the operation of the grid [in the same period], this challenge was further exacerbated with the insufficient investment in generating capacity and the maintenance of existing generator units.”

The government has taken significant measures to enhance capacity at GPL since the year 2020. The investments are made of more than twenty-eight billion dollars, which resulted in adding a generating capacity of 127.7 megawatts to the GPL grid while expanding the generation, transmission and distribution system.

President Ali mentioned these investments and said, “The investment in the electricity sector by my administration included expansion and upgrade of the distribution network, substations, installation and replacement of more than 100,000 metres, as well as close to 4,000 transformers and laying almost 2800 kilometres of distribution network.”

The government is also taking measures in terms of making the nations more energy suffercient in order to serve the increasing demand with development. The investments are made in renewable energy like solar, hydropower, and others.

The investments by the government of Guyana resulted in an increase in electricity generation through renewable methods by more than two hundred per cent. Similar projects are launched by the leadership for the betterment of the citizens, and the one-off cash grant for households is marked as a part of the initiative.