Poor cup hands to Santa Clarke

Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke is being pressed by a non-governmental charity and a household helper to carve out targeted assistance for struggling families whose budgets have been savaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

With the 2021-22 Estimates of Expenditure scheduled for tabling in Parliament today, Karen Mitchell, a domestic worker, said the poor need a parachute in an economy that has haemorrhaged thousands of jobs after a year of disaster.

Appeals like those are likely to weigh heavily on the head of the finance minister, who earned the moniker ‘Santa Clarke’ for doling out benefits amid more favourable fiscal fortunes a few years aback.

While commending the Government for its compassionate CARE assistance to jobless and poor Jamaicans who are not benefiting under the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) last year, Mitchell said the $10,000 payout was only able to provide short-term support.

“The COVID spreading out more and a lot of people lose their jobs,” she told The Gleaner.

With two of her four children on PATH, Mitchell said she has started rearing chickens to supplement her meagre income.

“Right now, I have 19 chickens, and I don’t have hands to sell them, so it’s not just domestic helper work alone I do.”

Jamaica’s jobless rate rose to 10.7 per cent in October 2020, almost 50 per cent higher than a year earlier.

A similar view was shared by Kathlene Bennett, who urged the Government to set aside money in the Budget, besides the allocation for PATH, to assist persons who have fallen on hard times.

“People are in great need. I think they should focus on the needy most of all in the Budget,” Bennett said.

The Holness administration last year rolled out its $10-billion COVID-19 Allocation of Resources for Employees (CARE) programme, which provided compassionate cash grants to 250,000 people.

The CARE programme provided temporary cash transfers to individuals and businesses to cushion the economic fallout from the pandemic.

It formed part of the Government’s $25-billion stimulus in response to the global health crisis.

Approximately 435,000 Jamaicans have benefited under the overall CARE Programme, which also provided general grants, which was initiated in April 2020.

The parliamentary Opposition has been pushing the Government to issue additional grants for the needy as many Jamaicans were still facing increased hardships owing to the negative effects of the pandemic.

RESCUE THE POOR

Executive director of the Poverty Alleviation and Empowerment Foundation (PAEF), Pauline Gregory-Lewis, said that while PATH facilitated many who were in need, others had missed out.

She said that a community-development approach was needed to rescue the poor.

“So many people I have come across while working in St Catherine who do not want handouts,” said Gregory-Lewis.

“They take it because this is what is presented to them, but if they get an opportunity to work, they will work. They want to earn their money for themselves and be able to help their families.”

The PAEF is an approved charitable organisation that started its operations in 2014.

Gregory-Lewis noted that her life was invested in community development and finding ways to lift up those at the base of society.

She called for a special allocation in the Budget to empower and change the lives of “those at the bottom”.

“Every time I see a need, tears fill my eyes. ... They want their lives to be better – a whole lot of good people in the ghetto wanting change,” said the social activist.