With more than 50 percent of the 2024 Budget assigned to infrastructural work, the Economic Independence Movement (EIM) appealed to residents of Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam, to pressure the People’s Progressive Party PPP administration to give Cash Grants as it continued its robust Direct Cash-Transfer Initiative in communities across Guyana. Recently two communities in Angoy’s Avenue, namely Timmer Dam and Patrick Dam, were beneficiaries of the upliftment sessions. EIM has now held grounding sessions in seven communities, across Regions 4, 5, 6 and 10.
“The call to you my Guyanese Brothers and Sisters, is this: put pressure on whichever representative you support; and primarily the ruling PPP administration for Cash Grants, which is equivalent to a cash refund because the money is ours; the oil is ours; our ancestors died, sweated and were killed, and exploited, and to this day, they are still being exploited,” Chairman of EIM, Nigel Hinds told the residents.
Hinds informed them that Guyana earns about US$1.5 Billion every six weeks from the oil and gas industry. The Businessman/Social Activist said that when translated to local currency it amounts to approximately GY$300 billion.
“This is what our Government brings in revenue. Right now, we have sitting in the National Resources Fund over GY$400 billion, and still we can’t find the money to give GY$600,000 annually in Cash Grants to the households in Guyana, which would work out to about GY$144 billion a year – if they give each household GY$50,000 a month,” Hinds noted.
The Certified Public Accountant assumed 240,000 households in Guyana for the computation. Poverty in Guyana is at 40% and extreme poverty is at 28%. While extreme wealth is skyrocketing amongst the inner circle of the PPP administration. The welfare wealth to the PPP elites is accelerated by the biased contract allocation, fueled through the PPP Cabinet, National Budget, Public Procurement Commission and the National Procurement & Tender Administration Board.
Hinds observed that the revenue from oil needs to be expended on much more than just roads, pipelines, and bridges. The people cannot eat roads and bridges. He said issues like food, housing, education and health-care; need just as much attention as roads, bridges and pipeline infrastructure, if not much more. According to Hinds, the current spending of the oil revenues reflects massive “squandermania”.
He told the residents that if past Presidents such as Forbes Burnham, Desmond Hoyte or Cheddi Jagan had access to such a massive economic windfall, Guyana would have been leaps and bounds ahead of the Caribbean and the wider region, and the benefits and wealth transfer would have primarily focused on social programmes and poverty reduction programs, without the racist orientation.
The Guyana oil discovery will go down as one of the best deepwater oil and gas developments in industry history, according to Darren Wood, CEO of ExxonMobil, as stated on April 26, 2024, during an interview on CNBC. To have the most lucrative oil discovery in Guyana’s territory in the history of the industry and fail to uplift the lives of all Guyanese now – amounts to extreme incompetence and/or wickedness by the PPP key decision maker/s.