First day of AKB payments in Nickerie: “This is unacceptable”

The payments of state child allowance (AKB) in the Nickerie District on Monday turned into a complete failure. People whose family name starts with the letter A to E were summoned to the gymnastics hall of the Surinaamse Technische School (STS) Nickerie from 11:00 to 16:00 on Monday which was also the first day of the AKB payments. Hundreds of people who had started gathering at the gymnastics hall early Monday morning stood in the hot sun for many hours but the state employees were nowhere in sight at 2 p.m. “It’s degrading. We are being started like animals. They summon us here at 11 a.m. but they still are not here at 2 p.m. This is unacceptable,” said many people who stood waiting for the arrival of the state employees from Paramaribo. A number of people whose family starts with the letter A and B were allowed to sit in the gymnastics hall at a distance of 1.5 meter from each other. Later chairs were also put outside. Around 3 p.m. the state employees from the Ministry of Social Affairs still had not arrived. The people complained about the inconvenience. Reports indicate that the state employees had left Paramaribo around 11:30. The people who increasingly started to express their frustrations kept asking when the state employees would arrive with the money and each time they were told that: “They are on their way.”