U.D.P. says day care center improperly closed
The United Democratic Party held a press conference this morning hosted by Michael Finnegan to outline three areas they say are cause for concern. Finnegan claimed that he has received information that the Social Security Board is engaged in secret negotiations with Vernon Harrison Courtenay and W.H. Courtenay and Company for the payment of a sum considerably less than the 3.34 million dollars the court ruled is to be repaid to the Board. Finnegan says the United Democratic Party is asking the media to please investigate in his words, “the veracity of the allegation”. C.E.O. for the Social Security Board Narda Garcia told News Five the Board categorically denies that there are any secret negotiations going on with Vernon Harrison Courtenay or W.H. Courtenay and Company.
Area Representative Michael Finnegan also charged this morning that the government has “interfered” with a Housing Loan Scheme for ten million dollars negotiated by the previous government with the Caribbean Development Bank. They further charge that the government has been making false advertising claims about the program and that the interest rates and qualifying income level have been increased so that it no longer benefits poor people. Today the Development Finance Corporation issued a statement saying there are in fact two programs, one of which is an expansion of the first to allow more people to access the loans. The first phase, according to D.F.C. which targets people making less than eight hundred dollars a month and who were living in dilapidated conditions. It had an interest rate of eight and a half percent with a maximum loan of thirty thousand dollars to be repaid within twenty-five years. D.F.C. says this lending is continuing but that the Caribbean Development Bank has expanded the program to people earning up to twelve hundred dollars a month. They can borrow up to forty thousand dollars at 10.5 percent interest. D.F.C. says the 8.5 percent loans are still available and the majority of borrowers are accessing loans at this rate.
The final issue raised by Finnegan this morning was that of the Mesopotamia Day Care Center which he is claiming has been unfairly taken over by the government. As News Five found out, however, this story required some on site investigation.
Four years ago under the previous government of the United Democratic Party, the Mesopotamia Day Care Centre and Dental Clinic was opened on West Street to serve the people in that division and surrounding areas. But today, the United Democratic Party’s Michael Finnegan, area representative for Mesopotamia, claimed that on December nineteenth, Ray Lightburn, the P.U.P.’s defeated standard bearer for the area asked for the center’s keys and then temporarily moved a family inside the building, forcing the day care center to relocate to the upper flat. He says the two teachers have refused to work under what they characterize as hazardous conditions for the children.
Micheal Finnegan, Area Representative, Mesopotamia Division
“Having a family living downstairs in the day care center and having the cribs taken upstairs at the dental clinic, the two employees are of the opinion that there is a winding step inside the day care center, and they feel having children upstairs when their backs are probably be away from the children, that the children would probably end up winding down the winding steps downstairs. So what the two employees have done is taken the children at her home and the other, she has taken some of the children to her home.”
But, when we contacted Ray Lightburn, he told us that the center has not been functioning for the past six months and there was only a small number of children who were actually at the building on any given day. Furthermore, Lightburn says the building was in no condition to house young children.
Ray Lightburn, Organizer, Mesop. Development Committee
“There was only three or sometime four little kids that were being looked after here. This is the condition, the environment in which they were being looked after. There was no sheets, no pillows, no aid, no little toys, nothing to uplift the kids.”
Michael Finnegan
“But the point is, whether there is three children there or five children there, the P.U.P. defeated candidate has no governmental power to get the keys from the people who work there to do nothing with that building. He was defeated in an election. He is not the representative of the area and has no right, governmental jurisdiction to go to any governmental building and receive any keys from any civil servant.”
Ray Lightburn
“But what he does not understand is that, I never come and make any demands. Mr. Bradley who has something to do with the building and Mrs. Balderamos Garcia whose work is to improve the human development of these people are the ones who made this decision.”
Lightburn says in November he was contacted by the social development department to set up a committee to refurbish the center and that a number of business persons have already committed themselves to the project. However, in early December this work, which was suppose to have started in January was put on hold. The reason? The Rowley family, which lived opposite the center, needed a place to stay until their new house, being built by the Ministry of Housing was completed. Viewers may recall that in 1997, the Rowleys lost their home after the building suddenly collapsed to the ground. Lightburn says it was Minister Bradley who decided to temporarily move the family into the center. Lightburn says this is only temporary and that in six weeks time the Rowleys will be moving into their new home and the work on improving the day care center will commence. Lightburn, who is the organizer of the refurbishing committee, says as far as he knows there was only one woman working at the center and she is still on salary. As for the dental clinic, Lightburn says that service as well was not operating.
Ray Lightburn
“You can put your camera in there and you tell me and you ask the public if they would like to have dental care there. As a matter of fact, I am going to invite the health department to close it cause we don’t need that kind of thing here.”
Lightburn says work on the new day care center should be completed by the end of February.
U.D.P. Standard Bearer Michael Finnegan says the Mesopotamia Day Care Center was made possible through donations and fund raising from the community and business houses. He says that the dental clinic was to begin offering services on January twentieth and now that won’t occur. Ray Lightburn says there is no need for a dental clinic at this location because the government will be making arrangements with other dentists.
