The Working People’s Alliance (WPA), recently endorsed the call made by Professor Clive Thomas to make some of Guyana’s petroleum money directly available to poor and powerless households.
In a statement to the press, the Party said that it intends to dedicate its “political efforts” to lobby the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC) to lend support to the proposal. It even called on the Government to commit a percentage of the oil money for cash transfers.
The WPA said, “We recognize that cash transfer schemes are not perfect nor free of risks. However, cash
transfer schemes show the best practical results for combating poverty which has increased from 36% in 2006 (World Bank, 2008) to 40.1 % (IDB, 2018). WPA sees cash transfers as a direct attack on income poverty and financial stress among the poor and powerless.”
The Party concluded, “The core design problems for cash transfers from a literature review for 2000 to 2013 are: the size, duration and form of transfers. The key results to be obtained are: improved school attendance, health status, nutritional intake, female choices cum decision-making and reduced child labour.”
