By Kemol King
The fallout from President Irfaan Ali’s December 17 address to the nation has been framed largely as a broken promise. No Christmas cash grant was announced, despite weeks of speculation and political pressure. For many Guyanese, this eclipsed everything else the President said that evening. But this debate should be open to the question of feasibility.
Even if President Ali had announced a Christmas cash grant that night, it would not have mattered. The state simply has not yet demonstrated the administrative capacity to deliver a nationwide payout on such short notice. Attempting to do so would almost certainly have produced chaos and deeper public resentment than what exists now.
The rollout of the first $100,000 adult cash grant exposed weaknesses in the government’s process. Citizens were required to register in person, have photographs taken, and then track their status online. While many received cheques within weeks, others waited much longer.
There were also visible organisational failures. Registration centres in some areas were overwhelmed by crowds. The government later conceded that there were shortcomings and made adjustments to improve later phases.
A Christmas cash grant would have faced all of these challenges compressed into a matter of days. Registration, verification, funding approval, and distribution would have had to occur at unprecedented speed. Another round of registration would have been necessary if the government decided to offer bank transfers. If not, in-person disbursements during the already congested Christmas season would have caused chaos in population centres. The outcome would have been uneven delivery at best. Some people would have received money quickly. Many would not. It would have fostered a Christmas season characterised by disgruntlement with the government, as well as accusations of unfairness and incompetence. In that scenario, the government would face embarrassment far worse than it did the last time.
Also concerning is the fact that information gathered during the registration process for the first cash grant appeared to have been shared with the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) for campaign purposes. The irony is not lost that this is the very government that passed Data Protection legislation during its first term, to safeguard citizens’ personal data. This is not central to this editorial’s primary point about the efficiency of the cash grant distribution process, but it is important that the next rollout prevents such intrusion.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said Thursday that the previous cash grant took five months to implement, and pointed out that there was no budgetary provision in place for a new payout, meaning parliamentary approval would have been required.
Jagdeo also argued that “you don’t manage for cash grants alone” and condemned such a mindset. It was a strange logical misdirection. No one asked the government to abandon development.
The parliamentary constraint, however, comes at a time when the Speaker of the House is said to have left the country, and opposition parties repeatedly call for a meeting to have the Leader of the Opposition elected. The government at least prefers the status quo, in which Azruddin Mohamed, widely expected to be elected to the post, is prevented from assuming it. Henceforth, no move to Parliament.
While eight days (from December 17 to Christmas day) would not be enough to organise a cash grant distribution, some believe it could have worked out if the administration started preparing way sooner. But in that case, the parliamentary hurdle would be the main hurdle, and if they had cleared it in November, Mohamed would be Leader of the Opposition.
Opposition rhetoric played a role in stirring up expectations. A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) parliamentarian Ganesh Mahipaul stated that if President Ali was not “a liar,” he would deliver a Christmas cash grant. APNU proposed a minimum payout of $150,000, suggesting $200,000 would be preferable. We Invest in Nationhood also made demands. Their rhetoric was designed to box the government in and raise the cost of restraint.
It is difficult to ignore the possibility that some opposition figures understood perfectly well that a Christmas rollout was unworkable. If so, the strategy was about forcing the government into a lose-lose position, either by overpromising and underdelivering, or by declining and absorbing public discontentment.
The President’s own campaign rhetoric also contributed to this moment. His remark on the trail that Guyanese could receive the cash grant for Christmas if they behaved themselves may have been intended as a joke, but it landed poorly. It was flippant and disrespectful. The President is not the people’s parent, and the public is not a group of misbehaving children to be rewarded or punished. Many people saw the promise of a cash grant, not as a bonus they could splurge, but as a helpful relief for expenses that swell during the Christmas season.
Viewed through this lens, the December 17 address reads less as a development manifesto and more as a carefully constructed explanation for what was not coming. This is especially notable given that it happened weeks ahead of the expected presentation of Budget 2026 by the Finance Minister, which will outline the government’s development priorities for 2026 and beyond… for over five hours.
If across-the-board cash grants are to remain part of the government’s policy toolkit, the delivery mechanism must change. Manual, cheque-based distribution is slow and frustrating. The President’s call for citizens to open bank accounts, alongside the Bank of Guyana’s efforts to standardise and simplify requirements to open bank accounts, points in the right direction. Direct electronic transfers would reduce delays and inefficiencies.
Until this is all sorted, no announcement, Christmas-timed or otherwise, will deliver what the public expects.
