Be­fore all the hul­la­bal­loo start­ed over clause 34 some­one wrote in one of the dai­ly news­pa­pers that we should pub­lish a book with all the names and pic­tures of our cit­i­zens who re­ceived Na­tion­al Awards from 1962 to present to be dis­played with­in the school sys­tem and at our na­tion­al li­braries. At first I thought that it was a very good idea but then on re­flec­tion I re­alised that while maybe al­low­ing some fur­ther recog­ni­tion it does ab­solute­ly noth­ing for our na­tion­al awardees, peo­ple who give yeo­man ser­vice to the coun­try over many years and re­ceive a hand­shake and some drinks from the Pres­i­dent along with an award to dis­play and gath­er dust at home.

Many have re­ceived awards but end up be­ing for­got­ten and in some cas­es be­come des­ti­tute in their gold­en years.

There should be re­al recog­ni­tion for re­cip­i­ents of na­tion­al awards; some­thing that we as a na­tion could be proud of and use as fur­ther im­pe­tus to en­cour­age na­tion­al ser­vice and pa­tri­o­tism among the gen­er­al pub­lic and more so among our youth. Why not a spe­cial ID Card (Gold) that could af­ford such re­cip­i­ents easy VIP ac­cess to pub­lic and oth­er re­lat­ed ser­vices-with­out hav­ing to stand in line? They have served the coun­try and were recog­nised for their ser­vice, so why should the coun­try not now serve them? In ad­di­tion, the Min­istry of the Peo­ple could keep tabs on re­cip­i­ents of na­tion­al awards to en­sure that they do not fall in­to de­spair be­cause of un­for­tu­nate per­son­al or fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances. What a fit­ting trib­ute this would be to all na­tion­al awardees dur­ing our 50th year of in­de­pen­dence! On­ly then, I be­lieve, should we seek to dis­play the names and pic­tures of cit­i­zens who re­ceived na­tion­al awards with­in the school sys­tem and na­tion­al li­braries.

Ri­car­do Li­jert­wood

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