KEVON FELMINE

While the Op­po­si­tion used the Par­lia­ment to out­line its plans for T&T should it win the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox says the Gov­ern­ment is con­fi­dent that the pub­lic will once again re­ject the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

Speak­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day dur­ing the de­bate on The Ap­pro­pri­a­tion (Fi­nan­cial Year 2025) Bill, 2024, Cox em­pha­sised that the bud­get pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert is a com­pre­hen­sive roadmap for the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of T&T.

She ad­dressed claims made by Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, who ar­gued that there was no trans­for­ma­tion­al agen­da in the fis­cal pol­i­cy, stat­ing that the Gov­ern­ment has con­tin­u­ous­ly in­vest­ed sig­nif­i­cant re­sources to sup­port the poor and vul­ner­a­ble.

Cox said the Gov­ern­ment’s strate­gies had not on­ly res­cued but re­vived the econ­o­my, while the UNC’s pro­pos­als were rem­i­nis­cent of the ac­tions that near­ly pushed the coun­try to­wards In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund in­ter­ven­tion.

“On one hand, you see the re­sults of fis­cal pru­dence, and on the oth­er, you hear calls for a re­turn to the waste­ful­ness of the 2010 to 2015 era. We are con­fi­dent that just as the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty re­ject­ed the clev­er­ly con­trived coali­tion of the des­per­ate in 2015, in 2020, and in every elec­tion since, they will do so again in 2025,” Cox stat­ed.

She said Among the pro­posed so­cial ini­tia­tives for 2025 is a $3.2 mil­lion On­line Nu­mer­a­cy Pro­gramme for Adults, aimed at im­prov­ing the em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty of vul­ner­a­ble in­di­vid­u­als who have al­ready pur­sued lit­er­a­cy train­ing through the Adult Lit­er­a­cy Tu­tors As­so­ci­a­tion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) Re­me­di­al Math­e­mat­ics Pro­gramme will tar­get stu­dents from low-in­come fam­i­lies who can­not af­ford re­me­di­al class­es or ex­tra lessons. The Gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed $3.5 mil­lion to this ini­tia­tive, which aims to boost the math­e­mat­ics pass rate among dis­ad­van­taged stu­dents.

Fur­ther ef­forts in­clude a pro­posed $5 mil­lion for the Na­tion­al Dig­i­tal Lit­er­a­cy Project, de­signed to help vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens en­hance their dig­i­tal skills and ac­cess grants more ef­fi­cient­ly. The $2.9 mil­lion Dig­i­tal Lit­er­a­cy Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for Stu­dents will al­so play a key role in these ef­forts.

Cox ap­plaud­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing a $1,000 Book Grant, which will ben­e­fit 20,000 un­der­priv­i­leged pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary stu­dents. The grant is avail­able to par­ents or guardians who re­ceive grants from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices and whose chil­dren have dis­abil­i­ties.

Amid con­cerns over crime, Cox point­ed to the Build­ing Block Project as a crime man­age­ment strat­e­gy em­ploy­ing a mul­ti-stake­hold­er, pub­lic health ap­proach to ad­dress vi­o­lence.

She said the MS­DFS is in­volved in this ini­tia­tive by pro­vid­ing psy­choso­cial sup­port to fam­i­lies in af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.

Cox al­so ad­dressed the planned in­crease in the min­i­mum wage for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers from $20.50 per hour to $22.50, which will ben­e­fit over 21,000 work­ers, in­clud­ing em­ploy­ees in MTS, Cepep, and URP. She ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with the Op­po­si­tion’s crit­i­cism of the in­crease, not­ing that they failed to pro­pose al­ter­na­tive ways to fund larg­er rais­es.

“They have in­stead ridiculed this Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to im­prove the lives of Cepep, URP, and MTS work­ers. It begs the ques­tion, Madam Speak­er, what does the oth­er side have against the poor and vul­ner­a­ble in our so­ci­ety?”

Re­flect­ing on the Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance in fis­cal 2024, Cox point­ed out that the MS­DFS had in­vest­ed over $5.1 bil­lion in sup­port of vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens, sur­pass­ing re­gion­al peers, as recog­nised by the World Bank. Key ini­tia­tives in­clud­ed Pub­lic As­sis­tance Grants for over 15,600 re­cip­i­ents, amount­ing to $291.2 mil­lion, and Food Sup­port Grants for near­ly 15,000 house­holds, to­talling $116.3 mil­lion.

Gen­er­al As­sis­tance Grants pro­vid­ed $8.3 mil­lion to 602 ap­pli­cants, cov­er­ing needs such as med­ical equip­ment and rent. The Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sion sup­port­ed more than 114,000 in­di­vid­u­als, with an ex­pen­di­ture of $4.06 bil­lion.

The Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grant dis­trib­uted $552.1 mil­lion to over 21,600 adults, while mi­nors re­ceived $73.4 mil­lion.

Oth­er ini­tia­tives in­clud­ed the Na­tion­al So­cial De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme, which fund­ed hous­ing re­pairs and dis­as­ter re­lief. The SEED Pro­gramme sup­port­ed en­tre­pre­neurs, while 260 house­holds re­ceived dis­as­ter re­lief grants to­talling $1.56 mil­lion. In sup­port of old­er peo­ple, Cox said the min­istry as­sist­ed com­mu­ni­ty care homes and ho­n­oured cen­te­nar­i­ans.

Sub­sidised trans­port for se­niors and per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, val­ued at $5.95 mil­lion, was an­oth­er vi­tal ini­tia­tive, she said. Cox al­so men­tioned plans for a new, state-of-the-art Na­tion­al Ther­a­peu­tic and Re­source Cen­tre for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.