Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter
Left: Phillips: Country must ensure selection process is not partisan in any way, shape or form. Right: Samuda: We do not have sufficient resources to continue the subsidy programme. - File
MEMBERS OF Parliament (MPs) have been asked to help identify the almost 120,000 persons thought to be living below the poverty line who were outside Government's main social safety net.
Labour and Social Security Minister Pearnel Charles charged members of the House of Representatives to identify persons not qualified to receive assistance through the Programme of Ad-vancement Through Health and Education (PATH).
Charles said 245,000 persons were registered under the PATH programme. He said the Planning Institute of Jamaica has indicated that there were at least 115,000 more persons living below the poverty line.
"All members are asked that if there are any such persons in their constituency, identify them, fill out the form and send it to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security," an impassioned Charles said.
Deputy Leader of the Opposition Dr Peter Phillips and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller, however, raised concerns that politicisation of the poverty-alleviation process could make it vulnerable to corruption.
Path selection
"While I have no objections in sending persons to PATH, I believe that the purpose of this whole programme was to try to ensure that the selection is not to be tainted in any way, shape or form, but to be determined solely on the basis of need," Dr Phillips said as he sought assurance from Charles that it would be free of political influence.
Phillips' caution sparked a boisterous exchange between some opposition and government members. Tensions cooled after Deputy Prime Minister Ken Baugh and Deputy Leader of Government Andrew Gallimore offered clarifications.
The increase in the number of PATH beneficiaries comes against the background of inflation recently cresting 20 per cent and spiralling food prices which triggered the Government's emergency $500-million subsidy on some basic food items.
Industry Minister Karl Samuda told Parliament Tuesday that though the subsidy programme was successful, Government was not in a position to extend it.
Subsidy of cooking oil
Responding to questions tabled by his opposition counterpart, Peter Bunting, Samuda said that the subsidy on vegetable cooking oil translated into big savings for consumers. Though the ministry had recommended that cooking oil be sold at $84.63 per pint, Samuda said the average selling price was $73.14.
Samuda said that the average change in prices during the first quarter of the calendar year for goods on which subsidies were applied was 1.3 per cent. The minister, however, acknowledged that prices have gone back up.
"I wish it were that we could afford to support some of the more widely used basic food items," Samuda said in response to Central Westmoreland MP Roger Clarke, the former agriculture minister, who asked whether there were provisions in the Budget to provide further subsidies.
"We do not have sufficient resources to continue this programme," Samuda added.
The extension of the PATH programme, the Government said, was to give assistance to a greater number of less fortunate Jamaicans. Charles said that centres would be established islandwide to facilitate registration of persons seeking to get on the PATH programme.
Persons whose names were submitted for consideration may not be added to the list unless field officers from the social security ministry conduct investigations and deem them to be in need.
