Change Guyana proposes cash grants for single parents

Change Guyana has stated that is has a plan to provide annual grants to single parents in Guyana at an amount which matches the current finances necessary to send a child to school.

This was said by the party’s presidential candidate, Robert Badal, at a press conference on Tuesday. When pressed for greater detail, he said that this would be supported through 10 per cent of the country’s annual budget. “We can run this government by taking away at least 10 per cent on that budget to do social services; social services including single parent, including entrepreneurial funds that we talked about, including support for small and medium-size businesses. We can do a lot of things, 10 per cent is 30 billion dollars,” he told the media.

The plan for such was first presented by party supporter, Attorney Mishka Puran in a presentation. She pointed out that there are many single-parent households in Guyana which find it difficult to balance one source of income. However, the party did not speak to whether special preference would be given to certain groups of single parents such as widows/widowers and teenage single parents or whether it would simply be an open-door policy to any person who lives with a child or children and no husband, wife, or partner.
Even so, the party said its grants to single parents would be more than the meager $10,000 given in the past. “What could $10,000 buy? $10, 000 per annum is a disrespect…it can’t by a school bag or it can’t buy food for a month for that child,” Badal said. “We will formulate our grant in relation to what it costs a child to go to school.”

Expenses to ensuring schooling for a child could include transportation, food and school necessities. According to a 2014 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) survey by the Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Public Health and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the then child population stood at 301,680. Among the child population, 55.3 per cent of the children lived with both parents, 27.7 lived with their mothers, 10 percent did not live with their parents and four per cent lived with their fathers only. This represents an average of 20,400 children who were from single-parent homes.

Questioned about what methods would be put in place to ensure that benefitting persons are indeed single parents, Puran said that there would be a vetting process. She stated that this could include questionnaires and could be conducted by the Ministry of Social Protection which has the responsibility.

Responding to questions on how they would ensure that the grants are used for the right purposes, the party stated that it would utilise technology to avert abuse of the system as much as possible. At the press conference, Badal criticised current initiatives in place which lower the cost to parents, in general, to ensure the children attend school such as the Public Education Transportation Service (PETS) project.

As of September 2019, 29 buses, 10 boats and more than 4,000 bicycles had been distributed to regions all across Guyana. However, the Change Guyana Head said that the initiative has “hidden interests” and argued that it is better to give persons jobs with good paying incomes to provide their own transportation than to present them with the form of free transportation.

Should he make it to the National Assembly, Badal said that he will lobby against any ongoing project that he deems irrational and unsustainable.