Juliet Holness urges PATH probe
GOVERNMENT parliamentarian Juliet Holness has asked labour ministry officials to investigate whether tablets and food items intended for beneficiaries of the Programme for Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) have actually made it into their hands.
The request came on the heels of concerns voiced by members of parliament on both sides of the political divide during Tuesday’s meeting of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament alleging improprieties on the part of individuals entrusted with disbursing the benefits. It also followed a disclosure by permanent secretary for the ministry Colette Roberts-risden that officials have noticed that over the last five years, school attendance among children on PATH has declined.
“That says something about, I don’t know if it is the programme design or what,” Roberts-risden said.
A spot audit was the recommendation by Holness, a second-term Member of Parliament for St Andrew East Rural, who charged that the most vulnerable were being shafted.
“Go and audit the schools and see what they are giving the children. During COVID, I do not want to talk about what I saw one of my schools doing with the food and supplies that came for the children — they did not get it. So it may well be that you disbursed the benefits but it does not get to the hungry child that needs it,” she said.
Hinting at further improprieties, Holness said, “I would want to add one thing that you should include in your audit — those tablets given to students on PATH, please run an audit to see if those students have gotten their tablets and you will be surprised.”
She also said that there are people who keep collecting PATH cheques but who really are not in need.
“Clean up PATH and just do a reassessment. It is a critical programme... it is almost at the point of having limited to no effect on the people who genuinely need it. The problem is that we don’t want people’s business out in the public, but it would have been good if you had a mechanism where persons on PATH you are able to share these are the beneficiaries and the member of parliament could go through and say, ‘But stop, Julian on PATH and him mek so much money.’ It could be another trigger to say the social worker should check out these 10 people and I could send out a letter to the ministry to say please investigate; something has to give, because we are not reaching the most vulnerable,” she added.
She also charged that officers of the ministry have been refusing to tend to people who have fallen off the programme and have requested reverification in order to get back on.
“My information is that when asked, officers who are social workers say they cannot come out to do any reverification because it is COVID time,” Holness told ministry officials.
Roberts Risden responded: “I will have to do my investigations. I have not heard that, but will ask my managers to investigate. If that is being said, it ought not to be.”
Holness then said: “PS [Permanent Secretary], it is easy to verify how many visits have taken place over the COVID period by the social workers, so you would have had a log and if the activity has significantly declined, you should not have to look far, the numbers don’t lie.”
Holness’s points were backed by Opposition Member of Parliament Dr Morais Guy, who said, “There are some people out there who are not to be on PATH who are on PATH... I know policemen, not constables, whose children are on PATH; teachers who have not just left school whose children are on PATH, and the very poor, the destitute, are not... they are the ones who will line up at the constituency office pre-, during and POST-COVID to say ‘MP, what can you do for us?’”.
The last verification exercise for the programme, which is in its 19th year, was done in 2013.
Roberts-risden said the programme is due an overhaul.