Give us control!
MPs lament lack of inf luence in housing project with Food For the Poor
MEMBERS OF Parliament who have ‘attacked’ Food For The Poor (FFP), claiming that poor-quality houses are being built for poor Jamaicans at unreasonable costs are ungrateful and should apologise to Jamaica’s largest charity, argues Pearnel Charles, the representative of Clarendon North Central.
“It is unfair to our national and international donors for us to speak the way we speak about FFP. Neither PNP (People’s National Party) nor JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) governments could do for the people of Jamaica what has been done over the last few years. We need to apologise to Food For The Poor. We must be grateful,” he told The Gleaner yesterday.
COMMITTEE SEEKS REVIEW
Audrey Sewell, permanent secretary in the economic growth and job creation ministry, says that the project continues under the same structures unless a directive comes from the portfolio minister, Andrew Holness, prime minister. A parliamentary committee has called for a review to give MPs more say in the selection of beneficiaries.
“A parliamentarian is well within his or her right to ask for that (review), but just to say, though, that the programme continued under this administration as it was originally conceived and implemented,” she told The Gleaner
In addition, Sewell said that Everald Warmington, the state minister in the ministry, should be asked to clarify his comments at Wednesday’s meeting of the Infrastructure and Physical Development Committee, that Holness had ordered the project suspended. “Mr Warmington made that comment. Mr Warmington is to be asked to clarify and explain his comment.”
Food For the Poor, Jamaica’s largest charity, has reacted angrily to comments from the MPs, who raised questions about the quality and cost of building the houses under a fiveyear agreement that was signed in August 2012. One thousand two hundred houses, each worth US$6,400 (J$832,000), are to be built each year of the deal. Jamaica pays half of the cost of each two-bedroom board house.