CHAIRMAN of the Wakenaam Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), Zakir Khan and Community Development Manager in charge of Regional Distribution, Shara Seelall have joined in refuting an article in yesterday’s Kaieteur News headlined “OLPF Programme in more trouble.”

The article claims that persons on the island of Wakenaam were able to uplift laptops from the One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) Programme by just a show of identification cards and that there was a shortage of laptops for persons who were entitled because persons were undeservingly provided with laptops.
“…reports reaching this newspaper are that anyone who presented an identification card was granted a laptop… It was only after it was realised that the laptops taken to the island were mostly distributed and persons were still going to receive, that distributors suspected that something was amiss,” the KN article read.
It also stated that police ranks were called in and conducted random searches, one of which unearthed some five laptops in one household.
However, Khan said that nothing of this sort is true. He advised that on October 16 and 17, laptops were being distributed at the NDC building in Wakenaam and at two vacant premises in Meer Zorg. At this time, he noted that while there was understandably a back up of people, the distribution exercise, nevertheless, went smoothly.
When asked to comment on the claim that persons were uplifting laptops using just their ID cards, Khan explained that indeed persons had to present their ID’s but only to verify their identities. He further pointed out that there was a list of persons who had already qualified for the laptops and the ID’s were merely used to be checked against this list.
Seelall echoed the same sentiments, reiterating that ID’s were used only to verify persons who had already met the criteria.
She also pointed that there was no scenario on the island which required police intervention. Instead, she recalled that there was one neighbourhood police present who was actually there to uplift a laptop.
Suelall said based on how the individual was dressed, he could have been mistaken for a police rank and this is what probably started the rumour.
“Some people are just out there to make us look bad. We have been doing the best to get the best out there and we’re going back to Wakenaam to verify more applicants who would have applied after the last distribution and then we will go back at a later date to distribute,” she stated.