UNC MP: Were health funds diverted to LGE campaign?

Fyzabad MP Dr Lackram Bodoe has asked whether the reduction of the allocation for drugs and supplies to the Ministry of Health in the 2020 budget means the rest of the money was being used for “other purposes” connected to the local government campaign.

He was addressing an extremely boisterous mass meeting of flag-waving UNC supporters at the Grants Road Junction, Rousillac, on Friday night.

Bodoe, the opposition party’s shadow minister of health, said the budgetary allocation for drugs and supplies was to ensure that patients could get their medications and other supplies at hospitals and health centres throughout the country.

He said the 2019 allocation was just under $600 million, but this had been substantially reduced, to just under $145 million, in the 2020 budget.

“That is a shortfall of over $400  million. So we asked the Minister of Health to explain the shortfall, and he could not answer,” Bodoe said, adding the minister, Terrence Deyalsingh, had referred the question to the Minister of Finance.

“But I want to know whether that $400 million is being used for other purposes,” Bodoe said, before saying the ruling party seemed to have bought out the airwaves of the various radio and TV stations.

Bodoe said the continued closure of the Couva Children’s Hospital would go down as the greatest tragedy in the nation’s history.

He said with work being done at the Port of Spain General Hospital, patients would have to be transferred to the already overcrowded San Fernando General Hospital.

They could have been accommodated at the Couva hospital, he said,but this would not happen, as it was being used as a pharmacy.

Returning to the local government election campaign, Bodoe said the only reason the PNM was targeting certain electoral districts in the Siparia Regional Corporation (SRC) was to “brag” that it was able to take the SRC from the UNC.

The candidates for both the SRC and the Point Fortin Borough Corporation took the podium to implore supporters to vote early and bring both corporations into the UNC fold.