GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) – The Guyana government is to provide a GUY$100,000 (One Guyana dollar=US$0.004 cents) in cash grant to citizens 18 years and older as it announced several economic initiatives on Wednesday night.

President Irfaan Ali, in a nationwide radio and television broadcast on Wednesday night said that the cash grants would be available in the 2026 national budget, promising also that “other cash grants will be paid during the course” over his five year term in office.

“Cash transfers are an important means through which specific policy objectives can be realised,” Ali said during his two-hour broadcast, announcing also that from next year, the 10-day government workers will earn monthly salaries of GUY$50,000.

Ali said the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) would also designate several areas as tax-free special development zones whose aims would be to drive employment in the non-oil sector by producing items that would replace imports.

“These will especially target the objectives of creating jobs where these are most needed, as well as promoting those categories of economic activities that generate export earnings, or that fulfill demand that is currently met by imports in specific related activities that generate export earnings or that fulfill demand that is currently met by imports,” he said.

He said that the locations those zones would be announced in the 2026 national budge and that financing would be provided to Amerindians to improve the quality of homes in their communities.

He said the government would also be abolishing net property tax on individuals with the objective being to ensure more disposable income in the hands of citizens.

In addition, the head of state said that small and medium enterprises (SME) will be able to access up to GUY $10 million through the Guyana Development Bank (GDB) which is expected to become fully operational before the end of the first quarter of 2026 and would receive an initial injection of US$200 million from the government.

In his broadcast from the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, President Ali pledged that youth, women and persons living with disabilities will be prioritised.

He announced also a flat tax of two million dollars on double cab pickups up to less than 2000cc, irrespective of age as well as a three million flat tax on double cab pickups between 2000cc-2500cc, irrespective of age.

But in an immediate response, at least two opposition parties here condemned the announcements accusing President Ali delivering an address outlining his administration’s five-year policy agenda outside of a customary parliamentary sitting.

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) legislator, Sherod Duncan labeled as a “democratic red flag” the launching of the five-year agenda outside of parliament and the exclusion of the opposition.

He dismissed Ali’s decision to deliver his five-year agenda outside the door of the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown rather than inside where parliamentary sittings are held.

“The symbolism of a president standing outside the legislature to announce a multi-year vision is stark and deeply troubling. It signals a deliberate choice to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and to treat democratic institutions as optional. In a functioning democracy, such an agenda would be tabled before the National Assembly, subjected to debate, and shaped through representation, not announced as a fait accompli,” he said.

He found equally disturbing the “complete exclusion” of the parliamentary opposition from the unveiling of the President’s five-year agenda.

For her part, the leader of the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM), Amanza Walton-Desir questioned whether the diplomatic community was comfortable with a five-year national agenda being delivered outside of parliament building, while Parliament itself remains paralysed and without a leader of the opposition.

“What makes this moment even more concerning is that this departure from established parliamentary practice is taking place with the apparent acquiescence of the diplomatic community,” she said in a Facebook post.

Walton-Desir observed that there was no insistence on the reconvening of parliament, proper functioning of parliamentary democracy, including the appointment of a leader of the opposition and the resumption of parliamentary business.

“Guyanese must therefore understand that we are entering a period in which we cannot assume that external actors will speak up in defence of our democratic institutions. The responsibility to protect parliamentary democracy, constitutional norms, and the balance of power rests squarely with us,” she added.

The FGM Leader said conventionally such an address is made to the parliament and, even if the opposition chooses to boycott, that address is properly recorded in the Hansard, the official parliamentary records.

There is speculation here that President Ali chose to deliver the speech outside the parliament building as he seeks to avoid a sitting of parliament that will include the leader of the main opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), Azruddin Mohamed who, along with his father, is wanted by the US for trial for financial crimes. They are fighting an extradition in the court.

House Speaker Manzoor Nadir is also yet to call a meeting of opposition legislators for Mohamed to be elected constitutionally as Guyana’s Opposition Leader.