Guyana among leading countries with COVID-19 cash transfers to households

According to a study conducted by the World Bank, titled ‘An Uneven Recovery: Taking The
Pulse Of Latin America And The Caribbean Following The Pandemic’, Guyana is one of the
leading countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, that have been assisting their people
through the hardships associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic.
This aspect of the study considered 24 countries. It shows that Guyana follows closely behind El
Salvador and Bolivia, which distributed transfers to more than 80 per cent of households.
Guyana is recorded as having made transfers to just under 80 per cent of households. The World
Bank noted that help was pertinent for households as food insecurity threatened many. “As a
result of diminished resources, nearly twice as many households in the region suffer from food
insecurity, compared to before the onset of the pandemic. This is evidenced by the fact that 24
per cent of households across LAC reported having run out of food due to lack of money or other
resources, as opposed to 13 per cent before the start of the pandemic.
Caribbean countries such as Haiti, Jamaica, Dominica, St. Lucia, Guyana, and Belize face
particularly worrisome levels of food insecurity,” the report noted. Assistance disbursed to
Guyanese include the COVID-19 cash grant of $25,000.00 per household, totaling $7.5B to
families across all administrative regions. All public sector employees received a one-off
payment of $25,000.00 in December 2020, totaling $2B. In August 2021, the government
announced measures to provide a one-off grant of $25,000.00 to old-age pensioners, public
assistance recipients, and persons living with disabilities, benefiting some 90,000 persons to the
tune of $2.2B. It also purchased $200M in electricity credits for the most vulnerable households.
The ‘Because We Care cash grant,’ which was taken away from public school children by the
previous administration, was restored, increased to $19,000.00 and extended to private school
children, amounting to an injection of $3.6B to help them get back to school. The government
also assisted farmers and households affected by the May/June floods, to the tune of $7.8B.