Dear Editor,
In his 2025 New Year’s Day message to listening, watching, hoping Guyanese, Pres. Irfaan Ali uttered some magic words that had many Guyanese doing cartwheels, some dancing on their heads. Age did not matter. From the Demerara Waves article dated Jan 01, 2025 and titled, “Opposition, govt, rolling out election year campaign promises”, I extract: “This process will continue in the months ahead. And let me signal that this cash grant is not intended to be a one-time payment. We are committed to ensuring that our people benefit from the proceeds derived from the exploitation of their natural resource wealth, and as such, we are committed to making future direct cash transfers to our citizens.” Thanks, Mr. President.
Now consider, this January 18, 2026 edition of Sunday Stabroek caption, “Cash grants not sustainable -President.” Plus, this detail: “Some people would use this as a political opportunity and tell everybody we will give you another cash grant, which is not sustainable,” the President said. What a difference a year makes. Pres. Ali delivered those words on Jan 16, 2026 at a function hosted by the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry. From “we are committed to making future cash grant” to cash grants now “not sustainable.” There is gratitude that the president spoke clearly and unambiguously in 2026. He also showed Guyanese the astonishing range of his octopus-like flexibility.
My position is simple. Do not make promises (“we are committed”) that can’t be kept (maybe not intended to be kept). Highly hopeful, and definitely struggling, Guyanese were told that better days are coming, that relief was on the way, as powered by their great oil wealth, small population. Then, they are coldly inform-ed that cash grants are not a long-term solution, not sustainable. People change; their promises disintegrate. They walk back in Jan, 2026, what was being slow walked since September 1, 2025.
Interestingly, Pres. Ali took the opportunity to douse poor Guyanese with a barrel of ice-cold water at a most revealing moment and place. The launch of private banking services by a local commercial bank. Congrats to the bank for envisioning a profitable niche play. But what is this mystery named ‘private banking services?’ Let me say that it is not for poor people, who may not even have the tiny deposit to open a savings account. Private banking services is for high-net-worth people, who have the kind of attractive portfolios that prompt bank executives to drop what they are doing, so that they can personally greet such clients at the door.
More colloquially, they are not people in need of a cash grant, whether one-time or repeated. I submit that it was very thoughtful of the president and his advisers to choose such a forum to broadside anguished Guyanese with cash grants are “not sustainable.” If that was all, I could give Pres. Ali some space, a pass. But he then proceeded to add vinegar to the open wound of desperate citizens, in front of his high-end, well-heeled audience.
According to the SN article, Excellency Ali ‘suggested that long-term solutions lie in structured investment, business development, and financial inclusion, rather than distributions.’ Cash-strapped Guya-nese can’t buy bread, but their president is delirious about ‘structured investment.’ From where the money to invest, structured or seat-of-the-pants? The president is with people with money to burn, and he is carrying on about ‘structured investment’ (not for the first time) to those he just pushed over the edge of despair. No president should be so shortsighted, so uneven minded, so callused in spirit.
What happened to the caring government that is the PPP of Ali? Why was less billions not spent on infrastructure, while Guyanese couldn’t buy food, and oil prices were around US$90 a pot? Why is Pres. Ali skirting around the fact that his government ignored cautions about the cyclical nature of oil prices and volatility, only to say now that cash grants are not sustainable? Why dodging that policy recklessness and overextension that failed hundreds of thousands of now despondent Guyanese?
Last, the president tried one of his tired, ragged poems: financial inclusion. How and when, and who, sir? Contractors, PPP insiders, private sector movers have experienced the largesse of financial inclusion. Poor people who got contemptible pittances for financial inclusion are now told to brace themselves for the worse, tighten their bellies (not sustainable). I always thought that Pres. Ali as leader left much to be desired. He didn’t me wrong.