Project Restore Guyana (PRG), a multi-disciplinary Task Force that was set up by the Government to address, among other social ills, the welfare management of the homeless and addicted, is now cash strapped and is currently placing its project to relocate vagrants on hold.
The Head of the Secretariat of the Task Force, Dr Sewnath Ponalall speaking to this publication on Monday disclosed that the Project was faced with financial and human resources challenges to continue with the vagrant relocation programme. Dr Ponalall added, however, that the biggest challenge was finding a building to assess the mental and physical status of vagrants to determine where and how to place them, whether it was in a hospital or a home.
“Unfortunately, there is no such facility in this environ; we have looked into the availability of buildings, matter of fact we have a register here with the government buildings, but we did not find any fruitful building that we can use to facilitate our project because all of the government buildings are either run down or occupied” Dr Ponalall said.
“We are currently looking at the construction of a building in the budget of 2017, to facilitate our project since the 2016 budget does not cater for this project,” the Secretariat Head noted.
According to Dr Ponalall, “if we can find money tomorrow from somewhere to invest in this direction, we will go forward. Well, at the moment since the economy is not performing too well right now – gold prices gone down and sugar price gone down, we cannot expect the Government to spread out all over at this moment, but to maintain what is there already.”
Social Protection Minister Volda Lawrence, speaking to Guyana Times in an earlier interview, had relayed that the commencement of the evaluation process for street dwellers would begin as soon as a building was released by the Public Health Ministry, which was collaborating with the Social Protection Ministry to carry out this programme.
Minister Lawrence disclosed that the purpose of the evaluation process for street dwellers was to assess the vagrants, then to determine the best facility for them.
When the homeless persons are taken off the streets, they will immediately be transported to the facility, she had explained. Meals and other necessities will be provided by the Social Protection Ministry and other partners.
“The committee recently held a meeting where it was agreed that to swiftly tackle this issue, there needs to be an evaluation process to determine whether those street dwellers can be treated externally, placed in a home, or be referred to the National Psychiatric Hospital,” Minister Lawrence said.
According to Lawrence, the aim of the programme is to ensure that this vulnerable group is given a chance to be reintegrated into society and contribute to the development of Guyana.
The task force is chaired by Major General (Ret’d), Joseph Singh and includes representatives from the Ministries of Social Protection, Public Health, Public Security and Agriculture as well as the Mayor and City Council.
