Improvements underway and more coming — Baugh

BY KIMONE THOMPSON Features editor — Sunday thompsonk@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, August 15, 2010

WITH rising medical costs, it is little wonder that, according to Member of Parliament for St Catherine West Central, Dr Kenneth Baugh, the number of persons flocking to access the free medical exams he offers are increasing.

Baugh, who is also Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, is a trained medical doctor. He has been doing free back-to-school medicals since 1997 when he was the Jamaica Labour Party caretaker for the constituency.

Each summer, he sets up in schoolrooms or church halls across the constituency, attending to roughly 200 students in each of the dozen or so sessions.

"Last year we saw 1,000 students. This year the numbers have jumped. So far, it seems twice as much (because) we find people coming from all over, even from across the border in Clarendon," he said. "This is my contribution to the constituency; it's to assist parents who have the burden of finding everything to go back to school."

The medicals are part of the constituency's back-to-school programme, which also includes distribution of school fee vouchers and scholarships.

"And all of that is funded out of the Constituency Development Fund," said Baugh.

Other major projects in the constituency concern water and roads.

"The most important thing for this constituency is the water project," Baugh said, listing some of the work being done in that regard.

"We are renovating a tank in Point Hill which will serve that community. For the Gold Mine system, we just completed running the pipes to Marlie Hill and from Marlie Hill through Blue Hole to Pedro. There's just one connection left to complete the system so we can turn it on," he added.

That system, Baugh said, will also serve the communities of Bellas Gate, Cocoa Ridge, Connors and Bellfield and should be completed within the next two weeks.

"In Buxton Town, we have put in the pump, in Back Lands we put in a new well. For Kitson Town, US$6 million has been allocated and the contracts have already been signed. We're going to use the well in Green Acres and expand it to two million gallons," he said.

That work should start this weekend, Baugh said.

The MP said some roads — like Byles to Cherry, Dark Hole, Frazer's Content to Paul Mountain — have been fixed, but acknowledged that there are many more that need to be addressed. He said the roads in Fairview Park are slated to be done in the short term and that $70 million has already been allocated to repair a major caving on the Garden Hill to Kentish main road.

Baugh said several community centres in the constituency have been refurbished, playfields have been graded, and at least one multi-purpose stadium have been put in. Examples he gave were Dover, Barry and Lloyd, Lower Mendes, and Point Hill. There are also plans, he said, to equip some of the centres with gym equipment to facilitate fitness programmes for community athletes.

Another big programme in St Catherine West Central is the micro-financing programme which gives small loans to farmers and business people.

"We took $8 million from the CDF (Constituency Development Fund) and put in a PC bank to act as collateral for loans," Baugh told the Sunday Observer. "I am in the process of meeting with community groups, whether it's the JAS groups (Jamaica Agricultural Society), CDCs (Community Development Committees), or PMOs (Production and Marketing Organisations) to select farmers and business people who need loans."

The sums offered are:

* $25,000 for the purchase of five goats;

* $80,000 for the purchase of 300 chickens and 60 bags of feed; and

* $100,000 for the purchase of five pigs and 60 bags of feed.

Beneficiaries are selected by the community groups and go through an application process. They have a moratorium of six months and interest incurred is payable every six months at a rate of 10 per cent on the reducing balance.

"We have had about a dozen of those meetings so far and we have sent almost 100 people now for loans," he said.

Although the $8 million acts as collateral, Baugh explained that beneficiaries also had to identify a piece of furniture as collateral in order to access the loan. The item doesn't cover the loan amount, the MP said, but is there to create risk in the event the beneficiary is tempted to default.

"They have three types of collateral. There is a savings collateral, a social collateral so that if the beneficiaries refuse to pay, the community will be disqualified from the programme, and the collateral of individuals putting up something precious," he said.

The MP expects to widen the programme across the constituency in coming months.

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Improvements underway and more coming — Baugh