The House of Assembly passed a bill Tuesday that aims to further reform the Assistance Grants Programme, which has been dramatically revamped over the past two years in keeping with recommendations in the 2022 Commission of Inquiry report.
Shortly after the release of the COI report — which provided a scathing assessment of the programme’s previous set-up — discretionary power for awarding the grants was removed from elected HOA members and transferred to the Social Development Department.
Now, the government aims to provide new rules and other parameters for the programme under the Public Assistance (Amendment) Bill 2024, which Health and Social Development Minister Vincent Wheatley brought to the HOA for a second and third reading on Tuesday.
During his closing statement after the public debate on Tuesday, Mr. Wheatley said the bill would “guard against abuse” and bring “greater structure and guidelines for us to help our people.”
Though the final version of the bill, which passed with amendments, hasn’t yet been made public, the original draft proposes to expand the selection criteria for appointing members of the Public Assistance Committee. It would also expand the committee’s functions, including the responsibility of oversight in eligibility determination, benefit calculation and grievance resolution.
Additionally, the bill provides amended guidelines for determining eligibility for different types of grants: long-term basic income grants for three to 12 months; short-term basic income grants for one to three months; and single non-recurring payments for purposes including a “hardship allowance” and a “shock response grant.”
Debate
Opposition Leader Ronnie Skelton spoke for about an hour during the public debate, raising various concerns and noting that he hoped for clearer explanations during the closed-door committee stage of the proceeding.
In one instance, Mr. Skelton took issue with a section outlining eligibility requirements for aid recipients.
“It says that in determining an applicant’s eligibility and need for ongoing assistance, the committee shall also consider the health, education, skills, employment, [and] prospect of the members of the household,” Mr. Skelton said. “I don’t understand.”
He added, “Some of these things are also barriers so that those people can’t get the help they need.”
Opposition member Myron Walwyn said he supported the bill overall but added that regulations are needed to help implement it.
“I don’t see the bill working as well as it should or as quickly as it should, because it does not have the regulations to go along with it,” he said, adding, “You really have to have those regulations so we know how we can bring the bill to life properly. There are too many missing gaps in it right now.”
Mr. Walwyn also took issue with requiring people in need of onetime assistance to go through the Social Development Department to get help.
“I don’t think people who just have a one-off-type situation should be sent to Social Development,” he said. “I think there needs to be a different structure for those persons.”
Mr. Walwyn also called to speed up the process in getting people assistance, saying that it is “taking an exorbitant amount of time for that help to come.”
In his closing statement, Mr. Wheatley said he agreed with Mr. Walwyn’s point.
“The idea of putting all these things on Social Development — I think it’s a very, very valid point,” he said. “And looking at the committee, I have some ideas of where we can move certain things to make them more efficient.”
After debating the bill publicly for about five hours and then retreating to a closed-door committee session, HOA members unanimously passed the bill Tuesday night with amendments.
It now awaits the assent of the governor, after which the amended version will be published in the government’s Gazette.
Criticism of the assistance programme’s previous system goes back at least 15 years.
In 2009, government auditors blasted the programme for its lack of transparency and accountability, noting that legislators had approved constituents’ funding requests for items including lingerie, a trip to Grenada, a hair show sponsorship, and “tickets for models at a car show.”
In 2021 and 2022, the COI revisited those concerns and found that little had changed.
Though the 2009 report by the then-Internal Audit Unit recommended several reforms, they were never carried out, COI Commissioner Sir Gary Hickinbottom reported.
Instead, HOA members continued disbursing public money with almost no oversight or accountability, creating an environment in which serious dishonesty or abuse of power may have occurred, according to the COI report.
To address such concerns, the COI recommended several reforms, which started shortly after the COI report was released in April 2022: The following month, discretion for awarding the grants was transferred from elected HOA members to the Social Development Department.
Related reforms have continued since then.
