Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Michelle Ben­jamin, has ex­pressed full sup­port for the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­as­sign the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help Lim­it­ed (NC­SHL) to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

The move, con­firmed in Gazette No. 146 of 2025, places the Com­mis­sion un­der di­rect over­sight at the high­est lev­el of Gov­ern­ment. Min­is­ter Ben­jamin said the change was in the best in­ter­est of the pub­lic and would en­sure stronger ac­count­abil­i­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy in de­liv­er­ing com­mu­ni­ty sup­port.

The Min­istry dis­closed that the Com­mis­sion is fac­ing sev­er­al se­ri­ous chal­lenges, in­clud­ing a fi­nan­cial deficit, con­trac­tor ar­rears, and lead­er­ship in­sta­bil­i­ty. The NC­SHL has out­stand­ing li­a­bil­i­ties of $19.45 mil­lion against avail­able cash and ex­pect­ed re­leas­es of $8.62 mil­lion, re­sult­ing in a short­fall of $10.8 mil­lion.

Con­trac­tors are owed more than $16.2 mil­lion un­der the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund, with pay­ments over­due by over 91 days. The Com­mis­sion al­so paid about $1.37 mil­lion in salaries to four se­nior of­fi­cers who have been on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave for more than a year, while le­gal fees linked to their dis­ci­pli­nary cas­es have cost an ad­di­tion­al $833,325.

An in­de­pen­dent in­quiry re­vealed sig­nif­i­cant laps­es in ac­count­abil­i­ty, breach­es of pro­cure­ment rules, and ir­reg­u­lar hir­ing prac­tices, in­clud­ing ap­point­ments to se­nior roles with salaries high­er than that of the CEO. The re­port al­so high­light­ed ques­tion­able vouch­er dis­tri­b­u­tion just be­fore the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Min­is­ter Ben­jamin said the Gov­ern­ment act­ed de­ci­sive­ly to ad­dress these is­sues. She stat­ed that the trans­fer to the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice would al­low im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion to fi­nan­cial, le­gal, and op­er­a­tional mat­ters and help re­store the Com­mis­sion’s in­tegri­ty.

She con­firmed that all sup­port­ing ev­i­dence has been doc­u­ment­ed and will be pro­vid­ed to en­sure a smooth tran­si­tion.