Shal­iza Has­sanali

Port-of-Spain North St Ann's West MP has ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of dis­crim­i­na­tion against dif­fer­ent­ly abled Aki­ni Gill by pulling a schol­ar­ship award­ed to him. The un­fair treat­ment met­ed out to Gill was protest­ed by MP Pa­tri­cia Mc In­tosh dur­ing a mo­tion in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day. Mc In­tosh ex­plained that on Sep­tem­ber 13, 2001, Gill re­ceived an e-mail from the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry schol­ar­ship en­quiries di­vi­sion con­grat­u­lat­ing him on his suc­cess­ful ap­pli­ca­tion for a schol­ar­ship un­der the Dif­fer­ent­ly Abled Schol­ar­ship Pro­gramme.

In Au­gust 2011, Gill was se­lect­ed by the Schol­ar­ship Se­lec­tion Com­mit­tee for the award of a schol­ar­ship, with a list to be sent for Cab­i­net's ap­proval. Gill's ela­tion was short-lived in Oc­to­ber when the for­eign schol­ar­ship was re­scind­ed. The award, Gill was told, was based on an ad­min­is­tra­tion er­ror. Mc In­tosh called on the Gov­ern­ment to re­verse the de­ci­sion.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan: Gill's case is not iso­lat­ed

In re­sponse, Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan ad­mit­ted that based on bud­getary con­straints dif­fer­ent­ly abled schol­ar­ships are on­ly ten­able in T&T ac­cord­ing to es­tab­lished poli­cies. Seep­er­sad-Bachan said mak­ing changes to ex­ist­ing pol­i­cy al­so had im­pli­ca­tions for oth­er schol­ar­ship pro­grammes. She ex­plained that Gill's case was not iso­lat­ed.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan said Gill should not have ap­plied in the first place "be­cause it clear­ly states so". She added: "Most im­por­tant­ly, it would not be fair to oth­ers, as well as po­ten­tial ap­pli­cants to ad­ver­tise a pro­gramme for lo­cal study but then ap­prove an in­di­vid­ual for study abroad." Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the min­istry will cor­rect the er­ror and com­mu­ni­cate with the ap­pli­cant. In the spir­it of love and giv­ing, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised that her Gov­ern­ment "will give to young Aki­ni". She said Gov­ern­ment will re-ex­am­ine the schol­ar­ship com­mit­tee and look at the cri­te­ria and man­ner in which they op­er­ate.