Kali­fa Clyne

The soon to be es­tab­lished Civ­il So­ci­ety Board will em­pow­er civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions to have an ef­fec­tive voice in re­spect to the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process in T&T. This was the state­ment made by Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Rodger Samuel yes­ter­day dur­ing a con­sul­ta­tion on the es­tab­lish­ment of the Civ­il So­ci­ety Board.

The con­sul­ta­tion, which was the fifth of 15 such fo­rums, took place at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, Port-of-Spain. "The Civ­il So­ci­ety Board will be a mech­a­nism through which or­gan­i­sa­tions can con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of na­tion­al pol­i­cy," Samuel said. Samuel was speak­ing to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of over 40 civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions and said the role of the board would be to co-or­di­nate the opin­ions and views of NGOs on key is­sues of Gov­ern­ment and so­cial ser­vices to be con­sid­ered in the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process.

He pro­posed that civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions be di­vid­ed in­to 14 sec­tors and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from each sec­tor be cho­sen to con­sti­tute the board. He said Gov­ern­ment would not be in­volved in the se­lec­tion of the Civ­il So­ci­ety Board. "The onus is on you to make these de­ci­sions," said Samuel.

Say­ing that civ­il so­ci­ety was looked at as or­gan­i­sa­tions that on­ly came to the Gov­ern­ment for funds to of­fer ser­vices, Samuel added that the board could change the way peo­ple think of civ­il so­ci­ety in T&T. "In sev­er­al meet­ings I asked civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions to show me what they had done with funds ac­cessed from the Gov­ern­ment and in many cas­es they could not," said Samuel.