Even though stringent checks and balances were in place, some persons managed to bypass the system and dishonestly collect the $40,000 “Because We Care” cash grants even though they do not legally have custody for the children.
This was revealed by Education Minister, Priya Manickchand, during a recent episode of “The Guyana Dialogue”.
She said the Education Ministry is currently in the process of dealing with cases.
“So, we have a couple of rules, we’re giving the grant to the parent who has custody of the child. One or two parents have slipped through, where the person without custody dishonestly came for the grant and we’re trying to, and have tried to deal with those,” Manickchand explained.
No further information this issue was divulged but the Education Minister noted that the Ministry is also dealing with situations whereby some legitimate parents missed the deadline to register for the grants.
“We asked people to register their children by the 31st of March, and then I gave an extension to the 14th of April. And it’s only if you’re on this register that we’re going to pay. We can’t pay anybody off [of] it at this point because we can’t account for that. When it’s done, I’m going to have a look at what is remaining to see if we could pay all the new intake that didn’t get registered, but that’s a separate process,” the Minister explained.
She noted that the process has to be followed, in the interest of accountability.
“We also want to be accountable. Throughout this process, the Auditor General’s Department was with us…from the packing of the envelopes to the vetting of the registers, to the paying out of the grant,” she explained.
It was reported on June 9, that some 90% of the allotted grants were distributed across the country.
This year, over 214,000 children in both public and private schools were expected to benefit from the cash grant programme. This equates to some $8.6 billion in disposable income being made available to families nationwide.
By 2025, the government hopes to increase the grant per child to $50,000.
