Latest update November 23rd, 2024 1:00 AM
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Crippled Wakenaam resident seeks Minister’s intervention
… after public assistance halted
A Wakenaam resident is calling on Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Priya Manickchand to investigate why public assistance paid to him was cut off and his name struck from the records.
Harriram Naniram, 43, of Maria’s Pleasure, Wakenaam, became a cripple in 2000 and was being treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital. Due to financial constraints he was forced to discontinue the treatment.
He then had to beg persons to fetch him to whatever medium was there to transport him.
Harriram Naniram with his children
Naniram told this newspaper that because of poverty he left school at 14 to work as a labourer to supplement the income of his parents.
He got married in 1989. In 1996 he began fishing and farming. In the year 2000, due to an unknown sickness he lost the use of both of his legs and that was when all his problems began.
His said that his wife began to neglect their home and would often stay away. He began receiving public assistance from the Government in 2002. At that time, a member of the board of guardians from his district whom he called Guitree, attended to his documents. Despite his strained relationship with his wife she collected his much-needed assistance.
In 2009, his wife deserted their matrimonial home for another man and he was left with the two children from their union.
His daughter who wrote the National Grade Six Examination this year and was awarded a place at the Anna Regina Secondary School was forced to attend the Essequibo Islands Secondary School on Wakenaam because of financial reasons and to attend to her father.
From the start of this year he has not received any assistance from the Ministry of Human Services and he learnt that his name has been struck off from the list of recipients. Naniram said that at no time did any officer or representative of the Ministry of Human Services visit him. He is puzzled to know as to why they have been unkind to him when others who are in better circumstances are receiving help.
Naniram’s 12-year-old daughter has the responsibility of cooking and doing the house chores while his son assists in moving him from upstairs to downstairs where he spends the day in a hammock.
He further told this newspaper that he used to knit and repair cast nets but over the last six months his fingers have been losing their strength.
The family exists on assistance from charitable persons in the community who would give them food or a “small piece”.
When this newspaper visited the residence at the request of neighbours, Naniram’s daughter had just returned from school and was about to prepare dinner.
This newspaper contacted the Ministry of Human Services which referred it to the Chief Probation Officer, who in turn said that she was unaware of the situation and promised to investigate.
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