Minister of Social Protection, Volda Lawrence yesterday cited the allocation of $471m for child welfare along with plans for a $40m centre for domestic violence victims and a strategy to get many of the homeless off the street as evidence that this year’s budget caters amply for every stratum.
“This Budget has captured the vision and spirit of this coalition Government of consensus and unity to create a new economic and social order for the benefit of all Guyanese,” Lawrence declared during a passionate presentation at yesterday’s session of the 2016 Budget debate.
This year some $13B was allocated for the Social Protection Ministry, a 42 percentage increase.
Provisions for the elderly were a key focus for Lawrence who said for too long they have been “this country’s forgotten”. She said that while she longs to have the Palms home for the indigent demolished and a new state-of-the-art facility built it was not yet financially possible. However $20M has been allocated to purchase equipment to improve the functionality and efficacy of the historic institution.
Specialists from the Georgetown Public Hospital have also been working with the Palms so that meals provided to residents meet specific dietary requirements.
Pointing to an additional $1,200 per month on old age pensions, Lawrence added that it was government’s aim to have a hassle-free experience for the elderly collecting their monthly government allowances. As such measures are being put in place to have an automated system where they can eliminate the collection of pension books and by January of 2017 have them produce their identification cards and collect their monies. She believes the automated system will also identity illegitimate beneficiaries and persons living overseas but still collecting a pension here as Guyana cannot afford to “pay migrants”.
And as she condemned the wetting of vagrants outside of the Guyana Post Office Corporation which was recently reported on by Stabroek News, Lawrence announced that a Georgetown Resuscitation Committee has crafted plans to have many of the homeless persons taken off the streets. Once these persons are screened, many will be sent to the Hugo Chavez Home for Reintegration and Rehabilitation on the West Coast of Berbice. There, she said, government will ensure that they are rehabilitated and receive life-skills training to foster reunions with their families and communities and use their newly-acquired skills to gain employment. This year a sustainable poultry, fish and vegetable farm will be established at the Centre.
“There are still many of our vulnerable citizens who are not captured by the many available State institutions established to help secure them against the vagaries of modern life. I refer to those vagrants who are now being indiscriminately doused by private citizens in a bid to remove them from the streets. This is not our method of handling growing national challenges,” she stated.
Night Shelter
She said that conditions at the Night Shelter had improved and it now has running water after five years. The institution is also cleaned on a daily basis, clothing is available for residents, and the ministry has seen that washing machines were installed with the help of corporate sponsorship.
Much of the Ministry’s focus this year will also be on the welfare and protection of children. “Our commitment to children is also shown in the increase in budgetary allocation from $253 million in 2015 to $471 million this year. This is money intended to help us target child abuse, especially sexual abuse, introduce a Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) programme; launch a campaign about child protection and implement the Early Childhood Development (ECD) programme that will include licensing of Day Care facilities. It also includes infrastructure works at the various buildings which house operations of the key agency,” Lawrence stated.
Human traffickers were also put on guard on government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ approach and the minister announced the restructuring of the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Unit. She informed that there will be an increase in staff with private investigators coming on board to ramp up work. There will also be legal officers, Senior and Junior Case Managers and an Administrative Officer. “We are serious about TIP in Guyana and will spare no effort to put the critical infrastructure in place to ensure the eventual eradication of the man-made threat and in the meantime the severest punishment for all convicted perpetrators, female or male,” she asserted.
The Minister said that it was a distressing fact that the majority of TIP perpetrators are women. According to her, last year women accounted for the majority of the 31 suspected trafficking cases and that children comprised more than 30 percent of the 59 victims for the same period.
As part of the Social Protection Ministry’s plan, a home will also be built to house male TIP victims 18-years and above. Said Lawrence “This is part of a menu of measures we will pursue this year to focus the spotlight on human trafficking which also ensnares many Guyanese males and we can’t afford, as a responsible society, to play the proverbial ostrich.”
PPP/C Parliamentarian Vindhya Persaud lamented that she did not see any plans in the budget for women, the primary group she focused on during her presentation.
Enablement
“The $230B Budget 2016 has failed to deliver transformative initiatives which will impact on women’s financial enablement and skills development and has not offered a plan for structural support to women in the throes of domestic violence or to those struggling to survive and provide as single mothers. Cosmetic mergers of the Women’s and Men’s Affairs Bureaux and a new gender policy will not address the fact that women are still at the bottom of the earning ladder in a patriarchal society,” she stated.
However Lawrence said that Persaud did not know what was in the Budget for women, as she never took up her invitation to plan policies together. “Prior to this budget I did extend an invitation to Miss Persaud. Had she taken it up, I would have been able to explain to and inform her of the policies being embarked on. However, I trust that my presentation will so inform the honourable member,” she retorted.
The Ministry also wants to purchase two ATVs for the Labour Department to better monitor worksites in the hinterland, in an effort to stamp out child labour, prevent employers under-paying or withholding workers’ pay, and be a fillip against likely TIP activities.
She said too there are financial allocations to improve the response to human trafficking; finalize the national Gender Policy, delink the Probation and Social Services aspect from Social Security, create a Suicide Prevention Manual;, and partner with several NGOs and the University of Guyana to train persons in vocational skills and business management and conduct job placement for single mothers.
In addition to revising the Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Acts, Lawrence said that $40M has been allocated to construct a domestic violence centre for victims.
She also announced that $6M has been budgeted for the Linden Legal Aid Clinic so that vulnerable persons could benefit from this subsidised service.
