The current administration is facing severe allegations of manipulating public assistance programs and planning mass layoffs of daily-paid workers amidst a worsening economic climate.
During a recent address, opposition leader Ralph Gonsalves claimed that the government’s budget for social assistance in cash approximately $26.985 million is mathematically insufficient to provide the promised $500 monthly stipends to the 4,700 people currently on the public assistance list.
To account for this shortfall, Gonsalves alleges that the government has secretly distributed the public assistance lists to 15 NDP politicians to manually select which citizens to cut from the welfare rolls.
Gonsalves condemned this alleged action as illegal, citing the Public Assistance Act, which mandates that the Public Assistance Board and the Permanent Secretary are responsible for determining eligibility based on need, not political affiliation.
Furthermore, the opposition raised alarms over potential layoffs in the agricultural sector.
Gonsalves warned that because the agricultural research and development budget was severely underfunded for the year, the ministry will face a shortfall every quarter, inevitably forcing them to fire workers or place them on a “two weeks off, two weeks on” rotation.