Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­ca Re­porter

Plac­ing the Na­tion­al Self Help Com­mis­sion (NSHC) un­der the Prime Min­is­ter’s au­thor­i­ty en­sures that ur­gent fi­nan­cial, le­gal, and op­er­a­tional mat­ters—stem­ming from grave mil­lion-dol­lar chal­lenges found at the NSHC—are ad­dressed speed­i­ly.

This, ac­cord­ing to Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin, who stat­ed that chal­lenges at the NSHC in­clud­ed fi­nan­cial cri­sis, con­trac­tor ar­rears, lead­er­ship in­sta­bil­i­ty, le­gal costs, ir­reg­u­lar hir­ing prac­tices, im­prop­er vouch­er dis­tri­b­u­tion be­fore the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, and in­ves­tiga­tive find­ings con­firm­ing oth­er breach­es.

“The Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­istry has been dili­gent in un­cov­er­ing and doc­u­ment­ing the ex­tent of these prob­lems and will sub­mit all sup­port­ing ev­i­dence to en­sure a smooth tran­si­tion,” ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from Ben­jamin.

Ben­jamin is­sued the state­ment to Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day night, fol­low­ing a query on her com­ment re­gard­ing the shift of the NSHC from her min­istry to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Of­fice (OPM).

The re­moval of the NSHC from Ben­jamin’s min­istry was part of the re­cent re­as­sign­ment of min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­volv­ing 18 changes. Out of the 25-mem­ber Cab­i­net, 10 front­line min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as­sumed fur­ther re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Five of those min­is­ters al­so lost some re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.
As well, cer­tain re­spon­si­bil­i­ties were re­moved from eight min­is­ters who did not re­ceive any ad­di­tion­al port­fo­lios, among them Ben­jamin.

Sev­en min­is­ters and their min­istries re­main un­af­fect­ed, nei­ther re­ceiv­ing nor los­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. The Gov­ern­ment’s four Min­is­ters of State and six Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­taries at­tached to var­i­ous min­istries al­so re­mained un­af­fect­ed.

Ben­jamin said she wel­comed and sup­port­ed the “Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion” to re­as­sign the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help Lim­it­ed to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

“This move is in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple, as it en­sures that the com­mis­sion, which is cen­tral to com­mu­ni­ty re­lief and sup­port, now ben­e­fits from di­rect over­sight at the high­est lev­el of Gov­ern­ment.”

Her state­ment cit­ed grave chal­lenges con­fronting the com­mis­sion: “In re­cent months, sig­nif­i­cant is­sues have come to light that de­mand de­ci­sive ac­tion.”

Ben­jamin’s state­ment de­tailed the fol­low­ing:

Fi­nan­cial cri­sis: Out­stand­ing li­a­bil­i­ties of $19.45 mil­lion against avail­able cash and an­tic­i­pat­ed re­leas­es of $8.62 mil­lion, cre­at­ing a net deficit of $10.8 mil­lion.

Con­trac­tor ar­rears: More than $16.2 mil­lion owed to con­trac­tors un­der the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund, much of it over­due by more than 91 days, threat­en­ing vi­tal com­mu­ni­ty projects and liveli­hoods.

Lead­er­ship in­sta­bil­i­ty: The for­mer CEO, to­geth­er with the Project Man­ag­er, Pro­cure­ment Man­ag­er, and Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tary, has been on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave for over a year. Dur­ing this time, the Com­mis­sion paid ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.37 mil­lion in salaries with­out re­ceiv­ing ser­vices in re­turn.

Le­gal costs: The Com­mis­sion in­curred an ad­di­tion­al $833,325 in le­gal fees re­lat­ed to dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings for these of­fi­cers.

In­ves­tiga­tive find­ings: An in­de­pen­dent in­quiry con­firmed se­ri­ous laps­es in ac­count­abil­i­ty, non-com­pli­ance with pro­cure­ment rules, in­ef­fec­tive due dili­gence, and breach­es of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, all of which un­der­mined the com­mis­sion’s gov­er­nance frame­work.

Ir­reg­u­lar hir­ing prac­tices: In the fi­nal days be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, in­di­vid­u­als were ap­point­ed to se­nior roles on salaries ex­ceed­ing that of the CEO, rais­ing le­git­i­mate con­cerns about trans­paren­cy, eq­ui­ty, and po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy.

Im­prop­er vouch­er dis­tri­b­u­tion: Re­ports in­di­cate ir­reg­u­lar dis­tri­b­u­tion of vouch­ers mere days be­fore and on the Gen­er­al Elec­tion 2025, point­ing to con­cerns of po­lit­i­cal gain and rack­e­teer­ing.

Ben­jamin em­pha­sised: “The Self Help Com­mis­sion is too im­por­tant to the cit­i­zens to be un­der­mined by weak gov­er­nance and ques­tion­able prac­tices. This Gov­ern­ment has act­ed de­ci­sive­ly by plac­ing the Com­mis­sion un­der the di­rect au­thor­i­ty of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, en­sur­ing that the ur­gent fi­nan­cial, le­gal, and op­er­a­tional mat­ters are ad­dressed with­out de­lay. This is about restor­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty, pro­tect­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey, and en­sur­ing that the Com­mis­sion ful­fils its true man­date to serve our peo­ple in their time of need.”

Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh al­so spoke on the re­as­sign­ment of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. He said it is the Prime Min­is­ter’s pre­rog­a­tive to make changes.

Swarats­ingh didn’t lose any part of his port­fo­lio but gained re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for mat­ters re­lat­ing to So­cial Plan­ning, De­vel­op­ment, and Mon­i­tor­ing. This was pre­vi­ous­ly un­der the Min­istry of the Peo­ple.