EDITORIAL
The new government of Prime Minister Tillman Thomas should give serious consideration to one of the suggestions made by former Economic Development and Planning Minister, Anthony Boatswain on the way forward for this country.
The ex-minister used the Sunday with George Grant programme to urge Finance Minister Nazim Burke to pay particular attention to operations of the Public Assistance programme that was run by the previous New National Party (NNP) administration.
Mr. Boatswain advised Minister Burke to look carefully at the names of persons on the list with a view to removing those who should not be there in the first place.
This is indeed a rather startling admission by a top official of the NNP regime.
The ex-minister was giving some serious food for thought and Mr. Burke should take up the challenge and head in that direction since Mr. Boatswain was speaking the truth for once.
GRENADA TODAY has mentioned in the past that the Public Assistance programme was littered with corruption and wrong-doing and one kept wondering why no one was ever charged for engaging in illegal activities.
The previous Minister of Agriculture in the NNP government and former Opposition Minister, Michael Baptiste has a wealth of information about the illegal activities in that sensitive programme.
The truth of the matter is that the NNP turned the "Public Assistance Programme" into a "Pension Scheme" for its known supporters and political activists.
The NNP of ex-Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Mitchell ran its own parallel pension scheme similar to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) as part of its strategy to maintain a stranglehold on the poor and unsuspecting people of this tri-island State.
There is no need for the new government of Prime Minister Thomas to ask for any audit of the programme.
Let us not waste time. There are several documents within the public service for all and sundry to scrutinise on how the programme was derailed for political purposes.
The "Public Assistance programme" assistance was abused by many including some government ministers in granting patronage for political mileage.
This newspaper had picked up information years ago about a certain government official who used the programme to get monies for her adopted children who by no stretch of the imagination could have qualified for such help.
The civil servants will tell you that some members of the previous government just kept adding on names and names of their supporters onto the list in order to give them "a pension".
There are persons living in massive wall houses throughout the length and breadth of this country and some with four and five bedrooms who were paid under this programme by the Keith Mitchell administration.
There are many youthful and vibrant persons whose only occupation was liming in the rum shops on a daily basis who looked forward on a monthly basis for their "pension" from the previous government through this programme.
A senior civil servant had confided in us that he knew of a beneficiary who was running a store in the downstairs of his own building and making thousands of dollars from his legitimate business.
Even a few expatriates who returned home were put on the Public Assistance programme by the previous government who made them believe that this was a pension from the State. It was all aimed at vote catching for general elections.
Is this the kind of progress that NNP wanted us to continue after the July 8 general elections? It was 13 years of corruption and bleeding of the Public's purse.
GRENADA TODAY is urging the new government and in particular the Minister of Finance, Nazim Burke to streamline the "Public Assistance" programme as a matter of urgency to prevent the wastage of millions of dollars.
It is our contention that if the programme is run properly then the right people can benefit with monthly assistance from the State and in some cases at a much higher level of income.
The new government must put proper structures in place including a directive that prevents government ministers from collecting these little sums and bringing it to would-be beneficiaries.
An ex-minister of the NNP government often collected the monies for some persons whose names appeared on the list but was known to be dishing out the funds to others.
The NNP really had to go in order to bring an end to its spending madness and senseless statements that no one should worry about the mounting debt since creditors will not take over and sell a country that is steeped in heavy debts.
