Much has been said and written about the macro-economic elements of the budget having to do with investment, diversification, recharging the energy sector and the attempts to create what is being called a "new economic space." However, there can be no ignoring a focus on the Government's social welfare programme. The experience has been everywhere that even in circumstances of ten per cent economic growth with a healthy export sector, there can be no meaningful social advance that can be sustained if a significant portion of the society is lagging behind.
Finance Minister Winston Dookeran estimated the poverty level at 17 per cent, reaching as high as 30 per cent in certain known geographic areas of the country. It was good therefore that the Finance Minister was able to protect the social welfare programmes inherited from the previous government, enhance a few of them and create a couple more. One of the new programmes involves giving greater assistance to people with disabilities. However, as already pointed out by others, it focuses too narrowly on mothers of disabled children. What of fathers and other relatives who take care of such children?
Expanding the programme of subsidies to electricity and water bills for people with very low or no income is meaningful and targeted to assist individuals and families in deep need. It is also potentially developmental as the only way for, especially, the children of such families to release themselves from the poverty trap is through education using electricity and being able to sustain healthy and hygienic conditions through access to a sufficient supply of potable water. One very important aspect of the policies designed to support people living at present without the necessary means is the developmental element of the policies and programmes.
"Focus will be placed on ensuring that individuals and families living in poverty or who are vulnerable to falling below the poverty line are provided with the necessary support towards attaining self-sustainability." Now that is an easy position to adopt on paper but quite difficult to implement in the face of real politics. And that is why succeeding governments over many decades have built up massive social welfare programmes.
On the matter of the support given to university students under the GATE programme, the Finance Minister seems to be rightly putting measures in place to monitor the provision of free tertiary level education. Fact is that over the years many students do not show themselves to be deserving of state support. Most importantly, the minister assured that a study will be done to link the needs of the workplace with what is being studied by government-supported scholars. This is especially important to ensure that we produce graduates who will fit into the workplace.
Lowering mortgage rates for people in the middle income brackets and making greater sense of the two state mortgage companies is another step in the direction of achieving some measure of equity. But clearly something has to be done about the Housing Development Corporation being able to meet the needs. It cannot be acceptable to have a waiting list for homes running at 129,000 with the demand growing every day.
The yet-to-be-worked-out Land for the Landless programme is a return to the Sou Sou Land concept. It is a programme with undoubted potential but it has to be carefully worked out to avoid the mistakes of the past. The sustainability of all these programmes is absolutely dependent on getting the economy going and successfully achieving the new economic space Minister Dookeran has set as a goal.