Against the backdrop of accusations of fraud committed by members of the past administration in the SLED Programme, Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton proffered today that once there is no skullduggery involved, he sees no reason why Members of Parliament (MPs) should not have access to these funds.
According to local media reports, the SLED programme is an initiative aimed at business and job creation in communities across the country, and provides funding to individual persons or organisations for the support of entrepreneurial activities, particularly in the areas of agriculture and livestock.
The Opposition Leader, during his weekly press conference explained that based on his knowledge, the programme catered for all Guyanese to access funds to establish projects or businesses. He noted too that there was no rules that prohibited MPs from accessing these funds.
“I personally don’t see a problem with these persons accessing the funds. And if there is a problem, I see it as discriminatory. To my knowledge these funds were available to all Guyanese and as such, these individuals were all qualified for their respective grants,” Norton said.
Norton was also asked about a part of the report which highlighted that two programmes were listed under a Congress Place, Sophia address. In response, Norton said, “You will have to contact Amna Ali for that one because she was there during that time.”
According to the Ministry of Labour’s records, it has been able to track projects that account for $234.644 million from the programme. These monies were distributed to projects carried out by either cooperative societies or individuals.
Some $6,275,029 is recorded as going to Region Two; another $13,691,535 went to Region Three; $7,907, 103 went to Region Four; $12,057,356 to Region Five; $209,307 to Region Six; $802,310 to Region Seven; $169,489,990 to Region Nine; and $24,211,422 to Region 10.
Of the $234.644 million, a total of $21,985,838 went to individuals, and $212,658,214 went to co-op societies. Hamilton noted that in many cases, the cooperatives were not registered with the co-ops division of the Ministry of Labour
