BAVI­TA GOPAULCHAN

Sev­er­al re­li­gious bod­ies have al­ready ap­proached the Gov­ern­ment for the sec­ond tranche of funds to pro­vide sup­port to needy fam­i­lies and mi­grants hit hard by the COVID-19 re­stric­tions, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said yes­ter­day.

Robin­son-Reg­is al­so said the min­istry has not had any is­sues with the re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions dis­trib­ut­ing tax­pay­er funds, not­ing they were all hold­ing true to the val­ues that they teach.

“It has been go­ing well and all, if not most, of the re­li­gious bod­ies or um­brel­la bod­ies have been fund­ed for this month and they have start­ed bring­ing in their re­turns so that we can give them the sec­ond tranche,” Robin­son-Reg­is said af­ter turn­ing the sod cer­e­mo­ny for a com­mu­ni­ty pool in Mal­oney.

At the be­gin­ning of last month, Gov­ern­ment be­gan dis­trib­ut­ing $10 mil­lion in grants to 14 de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards to pro­vide re­lief to needy peo­ple hit hard by the COVID mea­sures in place since March.

How­ev­er, while the faith-based en­ti­ties have been hon­est, Robin­son-Reg­is in­di­cat­ed that there are cit­i­zens who have been ap­ply­ing for oth­er Gov­ern­ment grants and us­ing false in­for­ma­tion to con the way to re­lief funds.

“With re­gard to the in­come grant we have paid over 20,000 per­sons and with re­gard to the rental as­sis­tance, we have had some de­lays be­cause we have had sev­er­al peo­ple try­ing to de­fraud the Gov­ern­ment and we are not go­ing to al­low that to hap­pen be­cause that is tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey,” she said.

De­spite the set­back, Robin­son-Reg­is said the min­istry con­tin­ues to process the rent re­lief grant ap­pli­ca­tions.

“We have got in the re­gion of 3,000 re­quests and we are pay­ing and pro­cess­ing about 2,000 at this time,” she added.

How­ev­er, Robin­son-Reg­is stat­ed that as far as she knows, no ap­pli­cant has been charged for try­ing to de­fraud the state. How­ev­er, she said the min­istry has hand­ed over ev­i­dence to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

Dur­ing the sod-turn­ing ear­li­er, Robin­son-Reg­is called a com­mu­ni­ty pool in Mal­oney “a red-let­ter day.” The Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Arou­ca-Mal­oney, she re­called hav­ing her pro­pos­al for the com­mu­ni­ty pool re­ject­ed in 1996.

The 24-foot fa­cil­i­ty, which will be con­struct­ed next to the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion, is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed with­in 10 months and will cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $8 mil­lion, she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is said she hopes this will not on­ly bring a facelift to the com­mu­ni­ty but will en­cour­age young peo­ple to live a life away from crime.

“For many years the com­mu­ni­ty’s rep­u­ta­tion was ham­strung by ri­val­ry and com­pe­ti­tion for turf amongst those whose ways of life then clashed with the peace­ful Mal­oney we know to­day,” Robin­son-Reg­is told the gath­er­ing.

She added, “But while this stig­ma is slow­ly but sure­ly dis­ap­pear­ing, one way in which we have been able to re­store some sem­blance of or­der and le­git­i­ma­cy to the com­mu­ni­ty was through the in­tro­duc­tion of com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties, whether through the re­gion­al com­plex, sport­ing com­plex or the li­brary.”

Na­tion­al swim­mer Akiel Joseph and so­ca star Akeem ‘Preedy’ Chance, who are both from Mal­oney, at­tend­ed yes­ter­day’s cer­e­mo­ny.