IN every annual budget government allocates funding, increasing the budget in incremental stages, for social sector initiatives, but as one visits the remote areas, where many persons are unaware of the provisions the government has been continually making towards alleviating the needs of the less fortunate, and their rights to access these assistance packages, one wonders whether these monies are reaching the intended targets.
On Wednesday last Chronicle visited the Cane Grove community during an activity organized by overseas-based Guyanese philanthropist, Ivor Ramphal, and used the opportunity to speak with some residents, who seemed in dire straits, and learnt from the exercise that the Public Assistance that many of them should be getting, given their straitened circumstances, with some very old and/or incapacitated in some way or another, causing them to live in the direst poverty, has either been withdrawn, or refused altogether.
Seeing that the circumstances of most of the identified needy persons have not changed since the initial needs assessment was made, it is only reasonable to conclude that some evil is afoot, and it is being mooted that officials are identifying persons whom they favour in some way or another, but who may not be in such abject need, to receive the largesse that the Government earmarks to provide assistance to the vulnerable and disempowered in the society.
Government institutions are laden with corrupt public officials, who oftentimes siphon off much of the resources that have been allocated for various programmes to divert them through various channels whereby they could benefit either monetarily or in kind.
Whenever any of these officials is caught and punished the unions take industrial action, disregarding the fact that the people in the nation are suffering as a result.
As in the case of the persons in Cane Grove, whose homes the Chronicle visited and verified that the needs are pressing and urgent.
Eighty-year old Surujbanadai Singh has sole care of her two mentally retarded daughters, one of whom is dumb and suffers from epilepsy, and the other who suffers from a variety of ailments.  The Public Assistance that she once received has been withdrawn.
Jasmattie Singh has had a stroke and lives alone with her husband, who is a sick pensioner.  Her Public Assistance has been withdrawn.
Rajwa, who once took care of his incapacitated son, Pertab, has had a stroke, and Pertab’s Public Assistance payments have been stopped.
Chandrowtie Bal is bedridden, Darshanie Rambharack has had a stroke, Ramrattie Baldeo has had a stroke, Debbie Wilson is retarded and handicapped, Shenelle Boyce is handicapped, Angela Beepat is HIV Positive and has sole care of 4 children under ten, Claudette David is very ill and unable to help herself.  The Public Assistance payments of all of the above have been withdrawn – to be re-directed to whom?
Guyana is a developing country and the government is trying to meet the needs of everyone, despite innumerable budgetary and other constraints, but there is need for proper supervision so that the initiatives are not derailed by greedy and corrupt officials.
Ivor Ramphal and his New-York-based group were prepared to supplement the government’s uniform project, but was pleasantly surprised when he was informed that the Government had already budgeted for every child to receive at least one uniform per year, as well as meals.  It means that he can divert the funds intended for this project to another assistance-related programme.
This partnership with Guyana’s diaspora is a wonderful journey that has fructified in much assistance to many in need, but the groups abroad put systems and, more importantly, honest persons in charge of the distribution process so that their efforts are not derailed and that intended beneficiaries receive the help that they need.
The government needs to use the same strategy and let persons within communities identify persons in real need and then help with the distribution – maybe through church bodies, or through regional systems, but development with a human face, as Dr. Cheddi Jagan always stressed, comes in correlation with distribution by a human heart.  It is for the government to identify the human hearts to which it can entrust its people-empowerment resources.