-some 10,000 Guyanese being registered daily

THE government has intensified its cash grant registration and distribution efforts, with the Ministry of Finance aiming to cut an estimated 300,000 cheques by the end of 2024.

Pensioners and public servants remain the priority groups as registration progresses at a rate of approximately 10,000 persons per day.

Speaking at his weekly press conference, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, provided an update on the initiative, highlighting that the government is commitment to ensuring the payouts are completed on a new schedule set by a robust technical team.

He emphasised that various ministries are working tirelessly to meet the ambitious target of 300,000 Guyanese by the end of December 2024.

“We have already explained that it will take us about five months to complete the task. The President said we are trying to hurry it up to get at least the public servants and the pensioners completed before the end of the year. We may be able to do that and get a number of people who were registered,” Dr. Jagdeo stated.

To ensure these targets are met, the registration and cheque-cutting processes are being overseen by highly skilled technical staff working in close collaboration with the Ministry of Finance.

Dr. Jagdeo noted that the team is on track to meet its goal of registering 300,000 Guyanese and cutting over 20,000 cheques daily by year-end.

Sharing this ambitious goal, he said: “This is done by a technical staff, and they said we can get about 300,000 persons registered before the end of the year. We can get those cheques cut. They told me they can cut around twenty-something thousand cheques per day,” Dr. Jagdeo explained.

To accommodate the scale of this operation, entirely new systems have been established within the Ministry of Finance.

According to Dr. Jagdeo, these systems were designed specifically for the cash grant initiative to avoid delays that would have been caused by the regular government accounting system.

“In the Ministry of Finance, they have built a system to do that separately, outside of the regular system. Because if we used the same system that processes government accounts, it would take a long time,” he said.

Despite the challenges, projections for the year-end remain impressive. Dr. Jagdeo assured that the technical staff are operating under strict guidelines, and a total of 300,000 Guyanese are expected to have cheques in hand by December 31.

Dr. Jagdeo said: “We estimated from what they told us that they can do about 10,000 people per day, and therefore it will be about 300,000 people, along with the people they have already done. Therefore, they would cut the cheques for those 300,000 persons, and that is what they have anticipated will happen,” he added.

While acknowledging the sheer scale of the initiative, Dr. Jagdeo emphasised its long-term benefits. The database being developed during this process will serve as a foundation for future grants, streamlining distributions and reducing administrative delays.

“Once we get this database in place, we anticipate that in the future, there will be similar grants. It will become easier because we already have a database where we can easily cut cheques to the people because they are real, and they exist. In the future, it will be easier,” he added.

Dr. Jagdeo also reassured citizens that all Guyanese over the age of 18 would benefit from this and other initiatives implemented by the People’s Progressive Party.

The cash grant distribution programme has been described as a massive undertaking and on Thursday Dr. Jagdeo reaffirmed that the administration is working at full capacity to ensure the cheques reach the hands of pensioners, public servants, and other registrants as quickly as possible.

The success of this initiative, he suggested will not only provide immediate financial relief but will also set the stage for more efficient public service delivery in the years to come.