Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali an­nounced yes­ter­day that every house­hold in the South Amer­i­can mem­ber of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) will re­ceive a one-off cash grant ofGUY$200,000 (about US$1,000) this year and that dis­tri­b­u­tion is ex­pect­ed to com­mence im­me­di­ate­ly.

Ad­dress­ing a new ses­sion of Guyana's Na­tion­al As­sem­bly yes­ter­day, Ali said the grant, which was among a range of fis­cal mea­sures an­nounced, was part of his gov­ern­ment’s de­ter­mi­na­tion to re­duce dis­par­i­ties in the coun­try and guar­an­tee that the peo­ple of Guyana have more dis­pos­able in­come.

He told leg­is­la­tors that al­to­geth­er, it is ex­pect­ed that about GUY$60 bil­lion (about US$30 mil­lion) will be in­fused in­to the econ­o­my through the cash grant.

An­oth­er fis­cal mea­sure an­nounced by Ali is the pay­ment to all pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, who will earn no less than GUY$100,000 month­ly (US$500) by the end of 2025, there­by in­creas­ing the min­i­mum pub­lic sec­tor wage to GUY$100,000.

The Guyanese pres­i­dent said the salary ad­just­ment joins oth­er mea­sures the gov­ern­ment has al­ready pur­sued to ad­just salaries for var­i­ous cat­e­gories of work­ers, there­by in­creas­ing their dis­pos­al in­come by more than one bil­lion dol­lars.

“This is how we are pro­mot­ing pros­per­i­ty, own­er­ship and dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth. This is how the re­sources and rev­enue of this coun­try are be­ing spent every sin­gle day to lift the lives of peo­ple, to ex­pand na­tion­al wealth, coastal wealth, and com­mu­ni­ty wealth,” he said, an­nounc­ing al­so a GUY$10,000 tax de­ductible per month per child for one par­ent.

“This ini­tia­tive would see the tax de­ductible on your salary im­prov­ing your dis­pos­al in­come and ex­pand­ing your non-tax in­come,” he said.

Ali said that the gov­ern­ment would be pro­vid­ing a GUY$10 bil­lion one-off in­jec­tion in­to the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme (NIS) so as to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al ben­e­fits to pen­sion­ers who are now re­ceiv­ing GUY$43,500 month­ly. The de­tails of that ini­tia­tive he said would be out­lined in the 2025 na­tion­al bud­get. a sleuth of mea­sures and poli­cies that are ex­pect­ed to form the bedrock of a “Vi­sion 2030” ini­tia­tive be­ing pur­sued by the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Pro­gres­sive Par­ty/Civic (PPP/C) gov­ern­ment ahead of a gen­er­al elec­tion next year.

In a lengthy pre­sen­ta­tion to the spe­cial sit­ting of the As­sem­bly, which was broad­cast live on CNC3, Ali al­so an­nounced plans for a dig­i­tal econ­o­my, as part of “the new econ­o­my we are build­ing that is not one of the past gen­er­a­tion.”