Shas­tri Boodan

Is­lam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion Umaah T&T wants to know why over 30 Is­lam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tions were blanked gov­ern­ment fund­ing to hold their Eid-ul-Fitr func­tions.

The ques­tion was raised by Umaah T&T chair­man Rasheed Karim yes­ter­day, as the or­gan­i­sa­tion held its an­nu­al Eid-ul-Fitr func­tion at the Masjid ul Furquaan at Greenidge Street, Fe­lic­i­ty, Ch­agua­nas.

Karim said masjids were told they had to ap­ply on a five-page-doc­u­ment for fund­ing af­ter mon­ey had al­ready been dis­trib­uted by gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties.He said in the past five years none of the in­de­pen­dent masjids had to make ap­pli­ca­tions for such grants, which he said went to as­sist needy Mus­lims.

Karim called on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to ad­dress this is­sue with­out the bu­reau­cra­cy.

"We have seen ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 or­gan­i­sa­tions grant­ed that gift and the ma­jor­i­ty who are in­de­pen­dent or­gan­i­sa­tions that are not aligned with those 15 or­gan­i­sa­tions, they are on the way­side," he said.

"We are say­ing that this is a fac­tor for dis­crim­i­na­tion. We are say­ing that should not be. In the past we have seen dif­fer­ent strate­gies and dif­fer­ent ways that were used that in­cor­po­rat­ed all the or­gan­i­sa­tions–both af­fil­i­at­ed and non-af­fil­i­at­ed–and we are say­ing here to­day that is some­thing that has to be ad­dressed."

In mak­ing the an­nounce­ment of gov­ern­ment fund­ing for Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tions at a post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing ahead of the Ju­ly 6 Eid cel­e­bra­tions, Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, ex­plained that the mon­ey would be shared among the same or­gan­i­sa­tions who re­ceived fund­ing last year. But she al­so in­vit­ed oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions seek­ing fund­ing to ap­ply.

"There are oth­er re­quests for grants which have been re­ceived by the min­istry and those will al­so be con­sid­ered for sup­port and fund­ing for the cel­e­bra­tion of Eid for 2016.

"The Gov­ern­ment can on­ly do as much as it is able to and I am cer­tain the monies that we are dis­trib­ut­ing will be used for the pur­pos­es for which they were as­signed. I don't an­tic­i­pate there should be any fall­out," she said.

How­ev­er, Karim said yes­ter­day the process was not on­ly be­ing made cum­ber­some to in­de­pen­dent or­gan­i­sa­tions, there was al­so no guar­an­tee of suc­cess.

"They are say­ing that in­de­pen­dent or­gan­i­sa­tions should re-ap­ply. The ap­pli­ca­tion for that grant is ap­prox­i­mate­ly four to five pages long and ap­ply­ing does not guar­an­tee that we are go­ing to get any," he said.

Karim said un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment the grant was giv­en with­out the red tape and start­ed at a fig­ure of $5,000 for the first two years and then went up to $25,000 an­nu­al­ly in the last three years. He said when the fig­ures were added up, the monies grant­ed came up to un­der $2 mil­lion.

"Now this Gov­ern­ment has giv­en $3.075 mil­lion and it would not reach many or­gan­i­sa­tions and mem­bers."

Karim said those who ben­e­fit­ed were the An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA), Trinidad Mus­lim League (TML), Tack­veey­at­ul Is­lam­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (TIA) and groups he de­scribed as "po­lit­i­cal new­com­ers."

Karim said Umaah will keep lob­by­ing the Gov­ern­ment un­til an am­i­ca­ble so­lu­tion was reached.