MARK WIGNALL SEH…Lisa Hanna your constituents in South East St. Ann demand answers now

Lisa Hanna your constituents in South East St. Ann demand answers now!

In a report on spending on Special Projects presented at the constituency conference in August 2014 there was an item of $4 million which was supposed to have represented Tourism Enhancement (TEF)/NSWMA funds spent in the Bensonton division

Prior to that, in December of 2013 the Special Assistant to the Minister of Youth and Culture transmitted an email to the Bensonton councillor, Lydia Richards detailing spending on TEF/NSWMA Christmas Program for Bensonton Division totaling $1,034,325.00. The list gave details of various disbursements mostly on bushing and trimming of banks, the specific locations and the individuals to whom the small contracts (from $35,000 to $130,000) were given.

Curiously strange on the list were two items. ‘Construction of step at Fowler Town Basic School’ and ‘Pavement of Prickly Pole School Front’ for which no attendant monies were attached. Even stranger was the fact that the Principal of Fowler Town Basic School later said in regards to the steps at the school, “Twelve thousand dollars ($12,000) were spent for labour and other fixtures and thirty- one thousand dollars ($31,000) for materials and delivery.”

My question is, why was this not stated on the December 2013 list? Part of the answer could be that the grounds of the Prickly Pole Primary and Infant school are still in September 2015 unpaved and I am in possession of a letter signed by the Vice Chairman of the school which states, “…no work has been done at the Prickly Pole Primary School for the past ten years and more except for a playing area built by some people from Canada for the Infant Dept. The school yard needs to pave. We asked the Local Authorities but nothing is being done.”

As someone who should know about the bushing and trimming, the councillor tells me that there was no evidence of any such work. Quite obviously she has to work this one out with Member of Parliament Lisa Hanna who it would seem, has distanced herself from her councillors.

But even if we should assume that the bushing and trimming of banks were done, from the $4 million said to have been spent, it leaves a gap of just over $2.9 million that is unaccounted for. This needs urgent clarification and no answers are coming.

In her capacity as Member of Parliament Ms. Hanna announced as part of her Sectoral Debate presentation that a computer lab was to be established at Rural Retreat at a cost of $1.8 million. She took it one step further at the Claremont Divisional Conference in July 2014 when a presentation prepared by her was read (she was abroad) which stated that funding for the IT Centre in Rural Retreat had already been received.

I have been to both locations- Prickly Pole school and the Rural Retreat Community centre. I have seen no evidence of a paved front yard. As for the Rural Retreat centre, over one year after the Minister and MP announced: ‘Rural Retreat IT Centre- funding already received for this’ there are no signs of a single computer installed. Maybe the funds are indeed there but happily earning interest in one of the government’s high yield accounts.

In the Minister’s 2013 Sectoral Debate she announced that funds had been secured for the rehabilitation of, among other places, the Moneague Community Centre and the Drumily Community Centre. Well Ms. Hanna why does the Moneague Community Centre looks as if it was hit by a hurricane many years ago and left un-repaired? Why does the roof gives the appearance that it about to cave in?

If monies were spent on the Drumily Community Centre, it could only be that it was done for the expressed purpose of constructing an underground cavern because from ground level, there are no signs of any rehabilitative work.

It cannot be that funds have not just been identified but secured and, two years on, nothing has been done. What sort of shoddy representation is that Ms. Hanna?

In the same Sectoral Debate the Member of Parliament said, “over the past year we have spent more than 110 million dollars to patch and rehabilitate roads with retaining walls in the constituency.”

It ought to be a simple matter that all councillors would identify those works, endorse them and get behind the minister in support of her continued representation. Instead the general question being asked by them is, ‘Where are these roads that have been rehabilitated to the tune of over $110 million in one year?’

If only because the Member of Parliament is also a full Minister she owes it to her councillors to get them back fully on board by clarifying these seemingly glaring anomalies and supplying the straight and no-nonsense answers to these burning questions.

And just when we thought it could not get any more questionable, there is the little matter of an individual selling Farm Work tickets. It is the norm that MP’s are, based on need for labour personnel in the overseas work programme, given a limited amount of tickets to hand out to constituents who are fit and in dire need of work.

Well minister it seems that you have a rogue close to your constituency office and he has to be hauled in even if there were in fact no tickets available. It is my understanding that this individual has promised tickets for up to $35,000 but based on ‘heat’ being applied he has paid back monies representing deposits.

I know that the Office of the Contractor General is conducting an investigation into matters having to do with how contracts have been awarded in south East St. Ann. We anxiously await the results.

It does seems to me though that if this constituency was not deemed a safe PNP seat, Minister Lisa Hanna would be more hands-on and embracing of the need to work closely with her councillors. The councillors are the ones who are closer to the people.

It appears to me that Ms. Lisa Hanna considers this too much of a bother and would much prefer to be purely the Minister of Youth and Culture and out of the way of these ‘country people.’

The constituency and its people deserve much better representation than what Lisa Hanna has laid out since 2007.