EVER since the government announced it will distribute a one-off cash grant of $100,000 to every adult Guyanese, it has been the talk of the town. We recently learned that Guyanese who live overseas with a valid national ID are eligible to receive the cash. Those who have been sending a “small piece” for their relatives back home can now look forward to a “small piece” of their own.

Meanwhile, the Opposition has been busy cooking up outlandish conspiracy theories. The nature of conspiracy theories is that they are never grounded in facts. They are meant to poison the air we breathe with lies and they are dangerous.

In a hastily written press release, APNU+AFC said, “while we believe that Guyanese from the diaspora who are in Guyana, registered and have a national identification card should be able to access the $100,000 one-off cash grant, we are deeply concerned that what Jagdeo and the PPP are doing is creating another avenue for the corrupt PPP elite, their families, friends and favourites to enrich themselves at the expense of the people of Guyana.”

Just to be clear, here is what VP Bharrat Jagdeo said: “The grant will not be paid overseas. We have no intention of going to New York or Toronto to register people there. They would have to be in Guyana to be registered here and they are eligible as Guyanese, provided they have the requisite documents to prove such. This enormously simplifies things for us and does not discriminate against residency.”

If APNU+AFC is in agreement with the PPP/C on extending the cash to overseas Guyanese, how is it “another avenue” for the PPP to commit fraud?
APNU+AFC alleges that including Guyanese overseas is one of Jagdeo’s “wildcat schemes” and not that of President Ali. In the insane hijinks of the Opposition, this amounts to “a serious and obvious division” between Jagdeo and the President.

President Ali spent well over three hours on October 10 outlining the accomplishments of his administration and in meticulous detail, he outlined his vision for the coming months. APNU+AFC boycotted the special parliamentary session during which the president delivered his message, but somehow, they managed to notice he did say that Guyanese abroad are eligible for the cash grant. To APNU+AFC, that’s all the proof they require to say that there is a rift between the president and his VP. I want to say the claim is childish, but puerile sounds better.

The press release goes from bad to worse. APNU+AFC accuses the PPP/C of having in their possession “the ID cards of many of its supporters who reside overseas” and just as the PPP/C “misused them in the General and Regional Elections in 2020” they will be used once again to “facilitate PPP corruption and provide more money for their 2025 General and Regional Elections.”

If VP Jagdeo is able to pull off such a scheme he deserves a crown. That the VP can assemble 100 people who bear an uncanny resemblance to Guyanese overseas, and then organise them to appear in person to illegally collect someone else’s cash which they would then obediently deposit into a box to be used to fund next year’s elections, is downright dopey. All that effort for GY$10M? One must question the sanity of folks who come up with stuff like this.

Oxford University researcher, Dr. David Grimes, devised a formula suggesting that the probability of a conspiracy being exposed increases sharply with the number of people involved. In other words, to pull off APNU+AFC’s dreamy scheme would take a few hundred people who would have to agree to keep their mouths shut, permanently.

But do you know who is not going to keep his mouth shut – Attorney Darshan Ramdhani. He is the lead prosecutor tasked with presenting 16 boxes containing hard evidence that senior GECOM officials conspired to steal the 2020 elections on behalf of APNU+AFC. The attorney tasked with trying to stave off jail time for the accused is none other than Nigel Hughes, leader of AFC.

Meanwhile, David Patterson, the Chairman of AFC, recently insinuated to a mostly Afro-Guyanese audience in New Amsterdam, Berbice, that he believes individuals receiving the cash grant will squander it on personal luxuries such as hair, nails and Vybz Kartel, a popular dancehall Jamaican deejay.

Rightfully outraged by the highhanded comment, AFC supporters took to social media to tell Patterson and Hughes “to mind their own business.” One commenter stated: “Hear who talking. You should shame to talk. What did you do for the five years you were there? Take Demerara Harbour Bridge money and buy jewellery for yourself.”

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.