RESIDENTS of the mining town of Linden, Region 10, (Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice) will benefit from financial assistance under the Linden Enterprise Network (LEN), which has received an increase in funding from the Ministry of Finance.

Minister of Finance Winston Jordan said the ministry recognised the importance of the fund and bumped it from $160 million to $218.8 million for 2019.

Jordan had to defend the increase after he was questioned about its significance by opposition Member of Parliament Juan Edghill during the final day of consideration of the 2019 budgetary estimates on Friday.

“There is a huge demand for assistance in the housing sector, so the additional funds will go towards assisting those persons,” said Minister Jordan, adding that some 417 persons benefited from LEN in 2018.

The minister said persons would also be able to access funds of no more than $1 million for investment purposes.

Government had allocated $155 million to re-launch the LEN programme in 2015 and Jordan had said that the fund would be used to provide institutional and capacity-building support to persons in Region 10.

The LEN programme is a successor to the Linden Economic Advancement Programme (LEAP) which was launched in 2002. It was reinforced by the Linden Economic Advancement Fund (LEAF), which was designed to finance projects geared towards economic development.

The LEN had been dormant since 2010, but a new board of directors was inaugurated in 2014 by the former administration.
That development had some degree of controversy, as representatives of the Regional Democratic Council of Region 10 claimed that they had not been consulted during the selection process.