SINGLE PARENTS

Oct 25, 2008 Peeping Tom

The President earlier this year announced a fund for single parents. No details were given as to what this fund would be used for, who would be considered eligible for assistance or any further details as to the nature of the assistance to be given.
However, it was announced that some $100M would be set aside for this fund. This is how policy is made. A sum of money is determined and then a measure is cut to fit it. Only in this case, those doing the tailoring did not know what they were doing, as subsequent events revealed.
A register of single parents was started. Single parents were asked to hurry and get registered.
Again no attempt was made to define just who is a single parent. Is a single parent, someone who is the biological mother of a child whose father has died; or the biological father of a child whose biological mother has died?
This would seem to me to be the perfect definition of a single parent. It refers to a case where a child or children has only one living biological parent.
However since the government did not define just who was a single parent, what we had was a situation open to varying interpretations.
For example, I am sure that the government will find on its register unmarried mothers whose child-fathers are not dead. It most likely will also have cases of married mothers whose spouses have left the home.
No wonder in excess of 32,000 persons registered. Single parents were not adequately defined for this exercise and the register now makes a mockery of the $100M set aside for this fund.
With 32,000 registering, it will require billions of dollars, not just one hundred million dollars to assist these single parents.
It just goes to how inept policy planning is in Guyana. What should have happened was that government, if it was keen on helping single parents, should have first sought to estimate just how many single parents there were in the country before announcing any sum of money.
The number of single parents could have been easily estimated by reference to the national census data. This would have given the government an idea of the numbers it was looking at.
Even if the data were not available, the government should have tried to carry out a survey to gauge the extent of the problem. This would have however entailed the government defining just who was a single parent.
What the government has done in simply registering persons is to create high expectations which cannot be realized given the paucity of public funds available. The government cannot even begin to assist a small fraction of the 32,000 registrants.
In order to get itself out of this mess, the government needs to trim this single parent register by clearing defining just who constitutes a single parent.
I would suggest that a single parent be the living parent of a child whose other parent has died. This would exclude all those cases of fathers not supporting their children and having their child-mothers claim that because they have to support their child without the support of fathers, they should receive some assistance.
Having so defined a single parent, the numbers on the register would, I believe, be seriously reduced, and this is the category that should be granted assistance. This columnist is opposed to his hard-earned tax dollars being used to support mothers who are not making a strong enough attempt to have the fathers of their babies support them.
The government should help these mothers to get assistance from their child-fathers, regardless of whether the mothers are married or not. The laws should be amended to increase child support in this country and to jail those fathers who are not willing to support their children.
The government should not, in trying to help single parents, seek to absolve fathers and mothers from not supporting the upkeep of their children.
It is time absentee parents take responsibility for their children and it is time that the law is strengthened to ensure some minimum level of child support which relates to the age of the child.

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SINGLE PARENTS

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SINGLE PARENTS

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