Scholarship List, Min of Community Development, Culture

[Greypatch]

The Scholarships List from the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs.


Leh we see the demographics...

and what there were given out for

[evo-STI-k]

wouldnt be surprised if a tuners daddy name show up here!

[Greypatch]

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl ... =161564393

THE SECRET IS OUT

Equality activist obtains 'scholarship' list withheld by Govt following legal action

by Juhel Browne juhel.browne@trinidadexpress.com

Tuesday, December 1st 2009


A secret list of those who received State grants totalling $46 million from the Ministry of Culture and Gender Affairs during the period 2003 to 2007 has finally been revealed.

Among those named on the list are a Government Senator who benefitted from financial assistance of $143,100 for studies pursued in London before taking office in 2006.


A total of 266 students received financial assistance from the ministry totalling $14.8 million in pursuit of their studies abroad in 2007 while 175 benefitted from similar assistance in 2006.

The disclosure came about through a request made in the High Court by attorneys at law Anand Ramlogan and Riad Ramsaran on behalf of the Indo-Trinidadian Equality Council (ITEC) under the Freedom of Information Act.


This was the same act that Culture Minister Marlene McDonald cited as the reason she could not reveal the names in Parliament on July, 1 2008, when asked to do so by Opposition Senator Adesh Nanan on behalf of the Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate Wade Mark.


McDonald, who was not the minister responsible for these grants during the four-year period involved, had told the Senate that she could not reveal the names on the list of grant recipients since it would amount to an unreasonable disclosure of personal information as defined by the Act.

In an interview with the Express yesterday, Ramlogan described the disbursements as scholarships even though McDonald had told the Senate on March 11, 2008, that they were ’really financial assistance and I have been informed that there is no binding contract between the student and the ministry’.


ITEC president Devant Maharaj provided the Express with a copy of the entire list and also a letter from the Ministry of the Attorney General Chief Solicitor’s Department dated November 9, 2009, concerning the legal request made by Maharaj on July 3, 2008, sent to Ramlogan’s San Fernando law firm, Freedom House Chambers, which stated that the grant list was sent to them and was ’subdivided into the categories of local, regional and foreign scholarship recipients’.

Ramlogan alleged they comprised a form of political and racial discrimination that should not be tolerated.

’These are political scholarships except that it was being awarded by the State. It was not being funded by a political party. ... It demonstrates the kind of political discrimination and exclusion of non-PNM supporters to access scholarship funds of this kind,’ he said.

Maharaj told the Express yesterday that it was the Government’s refusal to identify the names of the grant beneficiaries in the Parliament which raised suspicions as to how they were made aware of and had received the grants since McDonald had told the Parliament that during the 2003 to 2007 they had not been advertised but as of 2008 this was no longer the case.

’She used the Freedom of Information Act as a cover for the Government’s shenanigans so to speak. However, ironically the very same Freedom of Information Act was used by us to uncover, to shine a light on this very illusive information which the Government had refused to give publicly,’ Maharaj said.

He questioned the exact criteria used to determine who received the grants from the Culture and Gender Affairs Ministry.

McDonald had said in the Parliament last year that there was a set of list of criteria applied to ensure those who applied for the financial assistance were qualified to receive it.

[evo-STI-k]

thanks PAtchie! was gonna post on this but you know how the pnm heros would have been up in arms against meh as usual!

[Greypatch]

http://newsday.co.tt/news/0,111810.html

Culture schols not for culture
By Andre Bagoo Tuesday, December 1 2009


[quote]GRANTS for persons studying law, nursing, oceanography, sports management, accounting, dentistry and even for a person studying for a pilot’s licence are among a list of scholarships awarded by the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs over a period of five years, documents released by the Government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) show.

A list of scholarships awarded by the Culture Ministry was last month released under the Act, notwithstanding the prior refusal of Culture Minister Marlene Mc Donald to do so when she was asked to provide the information in the Senate in 2008.

Among the list, extracts of which have been obtained by Newsday, are:

an award valued at $72,600 for a student to pursue professional law studies at the Wolverhampton University, United Kingdom (UK);

an award of $50,560 for another to pursue a masters degree in sports management from the University of San Francisco in the United States (US);

another valued at $165,600 for the pursuit of a degree in oceanography at the South Hampton University,

also in the UK; one for $20,000 for a person to obtain a private pilot’s licence from Briko Air Services Limited, Couva;

another award valued at $12,500 for computing studies

and another valued at $63,200 for dentistry studies at Howard University in the US. The list covers the years 2003 to 2007.

On July 1, 2008, in response to two questions in the Senate filed by Senator Wade Mark, Mc Donald refused to provide a list of persons awarded a total of approximately $45 million in scholarships by her ministry, arguing that she was not able to do so because of the privacy provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

“In accordance with the provisions of section 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, the names of persons who have benefitted from such financial assistance from the State...and the financial assistance provided to each person are regarded as personal information within the meaning of the Act,â€

[Greypatch]

I wait patiently for the full list and criteria to be made PUBLIC

[ray d saint]

and i ketchin meh kant to do my MSc..... dem fawkers!!!

[Crackpot]

Thank God they win this case, this is just another leak in the PNM's sinking ship

Expose more i say, Anand Ramlogan getting better too.

Friend thing have to stop, they better save all they money because after 2012 they are out! I doh even want them collecting a Opposition salary yes

[MG Man]

big deal
this changes things how?

[larafan]

after 2012 they are out!

LOL...u really believe dat

[evo-STI-k]

Mg man its not a matter of how it changes things, its the fact that this government is Absolutely Corrupt, and that hard working students were being side tracked for friends of the govt , whos children are most likely Undeserving of such a grant.

[larafan]

Mg man its not a matter of how it changes things, its the fact that this government is Absolutely Corrupt, and that hard working students were being side tracked for friends of the govt , whos children are most likely Undeserving of such a grant.

IS DUNCIE YUH SAYING DE PPL CHIRREN DUNCIE DEY!!

[VexXx Dogg]

where the list?


*starts collecting big stone*

[2 d Max Auto]

and i ketchin meh kant to do my MSc..... dem fawkers!!!

x 2, I can't even fund mine right now

*walks off thread and stands next to VexXx Dogg, with some VERY BIG STONE in hand*

[Chimera]

i feeling sorry for the children who got schols and who name gonna be made public with this list.

Once theres some kinda remote link to a politician, ppl gonna say that it was corruption, whether its true or not

[Greypatch]

they were grants...

no obligation to the state and were disbursed by the Culture Ministry for disciplines that are not classified as culture.

also criteria for grants are not known..

[16 cycles]

interesting.....

any laws were broken?

does this mean there is a possibility that someone can end up in jail?

[Maserati]

they were grants...

no obligation to the state and were disbursed by the Culture Ministry for disciplines that are not classified as culture.

also criteria for grants are not known..

interestingly enough I have a friend who went & inquired about this and the person at which ever ministry said there is no such thing going on.
He showed me this article last night needless to say he wasn't amused.

So no obligation to the state means they do not have to come back and work in T&T after they have completed their studies.
Misleading actions from the Min. of Culture.

pity that those who would need some sort of financial assistance do not get it..and those who have ranks can get it when they may not need any sort of aid.

[Greypatch]

interestingly enough I have a friend who went & inquired about this and the person at which ever ministry said there is no such thing going on.
He showed me this article last night needless to say he wasn't amused.

never saw this programme advertised in the radio/papers...cannot speak to the web.

SEEMS the programme was for a select few....hence the reluctance to provide the criteria

[Greypatch]

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl ... =161564391

No politics involved

Beneficiaries:

by Juhel Browne juhel.browne@trinidadexpress.com


Tuesday, December 1st 2009

Government Senator Laurel Lezama benefitted from a total of $300,000 in State financial assistance from the Culture and Gender Affairs Ministry for the pursuit of a Bachelors degree in law and politics from the University of Westminster Regents Campus in London in 2005 and 2006.


This was disclosed in the list of grant recipients from ministry that was made public on November 9, through legal action by the Indo-Trinbago Equality Council (ITEC).


In an interview with the Express last evening, Lezama said that she had to go through a rigorous screening process before her application was approved and thought the financial assistance offered by the ministry was public knowledge.

Lezama said she did not receive a single cent from the money personally.

’It went to the university. It didn’t cover all of my expenses,’ Lezama said.

Asked about concerns raised by ITEC that the grants amounted to political discrimination, Lezama said, ’I don’t believe that it was specifically to party people at all. When I went to the interview, I did not know any person there. ... It was people who clearly had needs. I spoke to one young lady from Debe, a slim, slim girl of East Indian descent. From our conversation she clearly was not any form of political activist.’



Paige De Leon, who is the communications manager with the Office of the Prime Minister, received $173,640 in financial assistance in pursuit of her Masters in International Diplomacy at a university in Paris, France, in 2005 .

De Leon told the Express yesterday she had applied to several institutions including the ministry before her application was approved and, like Lezama, said ’no money was ever given’ to her directly

See it ok according to the senator who was the "lucky" recieve 300k TTD.


Them feel everybody are fools in T&T

[nath]

and I ketching my rass to even pay for my masters and they people getting it so damn easy.

This government is no better than the others only seeing about themselves and have poor people suffering outside here.

[acesinghit]

they fund their own
they protect their own
they promote their own
they educate their own
they recruit their own
they shelter their own
they feed their own
they facilitate their own

the free services/grants of society are designed for their own

who put them there? their own plus the outsiders

so the outsiders should not complain about anything.

[cornfused]

maybe Chalkie have the names , Joan of Arc 2008

but i don't understand , why a headline has the secret or list is out and has all of 2-3 names, talk about misleading. I want to see this explained.

[Greypatch]

full list should be published...

[hustla_ambition101]

Ian Alleyne have d list and was showing it tonite

[slick]

Ian Alleyne have d list and was showing it tonite

Does he have a website where he puts this stuff?

[W2J]

:popcorn:

wouldnt be surprised if a tuners daddy name show up here!

you just jealous that you did not make the cut and you will have to pay 22k a term for your kids to go maple leaf or the international school

[Mudboy]

Its pays to have a PNM card ....come join us and the world is your's.

You see how we handle things.......

Every creed and race could find a fleckin place (once it's below me)

[Team Loco]

Allyuh must blame the government for everything? Man pull allyuh self together and move on. Steups

[W2J]

Its pays to have a PNM card ....come join us and the world is your's.

You see how we handle things..........

I miss you today at the meeting for free link up for NHA house, when you coming back in