Chairman: Redeem self-help grants with urgency

NATIONAL Commission for Self Help chairman Anthony Campbell is urging grant recipients to make prompt use of their grants to avoid difficulties in processing payments.

Campbell delivered remarks as the commission distributed home-repair grants to 21 D'Abadie/O'Meara residents affected by natural disasters in 2021 at a ceremony at the Malabar Community Centre on Thursday

He said, “I know you may have been long in waiting but resources are short in supply. You are fortunate to receive your vouches to exchange in the hardware. I would like to urge you to immediately proceed to your hardware after receiving the vouchers.”

He said many people had put aside such vouchers and found themselves having to return to the commission to modify the purchase orders.

“There are many times people collect their vouchers and they are not used for that they were intended. They are stacked in a drawer or a pocket and, by the time that applicant is ready to go exchange them for material, what we have found is that the vouchers are stale-dated.

"They (grant recipients) now have to come back in and start the process again."

He urged those at the ceremony to, “Please go to the hardware immediately, change your vouchers for the materials. The hardware would then start the process which is quite a lengthy process. This is all we ask you to do so we can get further funds to assist another 20 applicants.

“It doesn’t end there, those invoices have to be sent to our line ministry and our line ministry sends it to the Ministry of Finance and then we get the funds to provide another voucher so another person can come forward and get assistance. “

He said the commission has put aside approximately $285,000 to assist affected Dabadie/O'meara residents.

“In this particular instance, we are responding to the disaster relief of several citizens who were affected by extremely harsh weather conditions. In fact, through the years and recently the world has experienced very unusual and sometimes catastrophic weather conditions which have been linked to global warming climate change.”