Dowlath says all approved book grants paid

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath is in­sist­ing that all ap­proved school sup­plies and book grants have been paid, de­spite com­plaints from ap­pli­cants who re­ceived ap­proval no­tices but are still await­ing their mon­ey.

The is­sue arose dur­ing Tues­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ex­am­i­na­tion of the 2027 Bud­get, when St Ann’s East MP and for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly ques­tioned Dowlath about out­stand­ing pay­ments and the fu­ture of the pro­gramme.

The ex­change al­so re­vealed that, for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive fis­cal year, the Gov­ern­ment has made no ini­tial bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for the grant, with Dowlath say­ing its fu­ture re­mains un­der re­view.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said she was aware of ap­pli­cants who had re­ceived emails con­firm­ing their ap­proval but had not re­ceived the mon­ey. She added that the is­sue had been raised re­peat­ed­ly and that oth­er par­lia­men­tary col­leagues had re­ceived sim­i­lar com­plaints.

“Per­sons who have been ap­proved and who have not re­ceived the book grant, will they re­ceive it in this fis­cal?” she asked.

Dowlath main­tained that all pay­ments from the $20 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion pro­vid­ed dur­ing the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year’s mid-year re­view had been made.

The com­mit­tee was told that 20,773 book grants had been paid.

How­ev­er, Gads­by-Dol­ly pressed him on whether ap­pli­cants who had re­ceived ap­proval no­tices but no mon­ey could ex­pect pay­ment in the new fis­cal year.

Dowlath re­it­er­at­ed that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion had paid all ap­proved ap­pli­ca­tions, prompt­ing Gads­by-Dol­ly to sug­gest that those who had not re­ceived their mon­ey would not be paid.

The ques­tion­ing then turned to the fu­ture of the pro­gramme, which pro­vides fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to fam­i­lies pur­chas­ing school­books and sup­plies.

Gads­by-Dol­ly not­ed that no mon­ey had been al­lo­cat­ed for the grant in the 2027 es­ti­mates, mir­ror­ing the ini­tial 2026 Bud­get, when the pro­gramme al­so re­ceived no al­lo­ca­tion. The Gov­ern­ment sub­se­quent­ly pro­vid­ed $20 mil­lion dur­ing the 2026 mid-year re­view.

“So I’m ask­ing, in this fis­cal, is it an­tic­i­pat­ed that there will be a school sup­plies and book grant?” she asked.

Dowlath said the mat­ter would be ad­dressed dur­ing the 2027 mid-year re­view.

“Present­ly, we are re-eval­u­at­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy and reach of the book grant,” he said.

He al­so crit­i­cised the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion, claim­ing it had pro­vid­ed no fund­ing for the grant in 2025, de­spite cam­paign­ing on the pro­gramme.

Gads­by-Dol­ly, how­ev­er, pressed for a de­fin­i­tive an­swer, point­ing out that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion had now had two years to ad­min­is­ter the pro­gramme.

“So at this time, can you say whether there will be a book grant in 2027?” she asked.

Dowlath again re­ferred to the on­go­ing re­view and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ad­dress­ing fund­ing at mid-year, with­out con­firm­ing whether the grant would be of­fered.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said the pub­lic would in­ter­pret the re­sponse for it­self be­fore con­clud­ing: “So there is no al­lo­ca­tion for the book grant.”