Camille Clarke

A to­tal of 57 flood vic­tims re­ceived cheques of $10,000 each yes­ter­day at their MP Prakash Ra­mad­har's St Au­gus­tine Con­stituen­cy of­fice, Pasea Road, Tu­na­puna.Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh who ad­dressed the flood vic­tims, said his Min­istry would en­sure all those who were needy and vul­ner­a­ble would be able to get on their feet.He said the grant for nat­ur­al dis­as­ter was raised from $7,500 to $15,000. How­ev­er, these re­cip­i­ents were giv­en a one-time pay­ment of $10,000.

"We are here to give some sup­port for their loss of fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances and en­sure there is no dou­ble re­ceipt. In the past few years we saw an in­crease in nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. No one can pre­dict when they oc­cur," he said.Ra­mad­hars­ingh said there was heavy flood­ing in the east/west cor­ri­dor be­tween Au­gust and Sep­tem­ber last year.He said there were oth­er grants avail­able to as­sist ,such as the Rental Grant and the Sow­ing, Em­pow­er­ment through En­tre­pre­neur­ial De­vel­op­ment grant that has been raised from $5,000 to $15,000.

"We are not en­cour­ag­ing sup­pli­ca­tion but em­pow­er­ment. Peo­ple can al­so re­ceive skill and re­train­ing af­ter re­ceiv­ing as­sis­tance from the state," he said.Ra­mad­har said the con­stituen­cy of­fice has been work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Works to stop the flood­ing that oc­curred every year in the area.