State agencies religious discrimination

When one hears the phrase ‘religious discrimination’ images of various forms of repression in a theocratic state in some far-off land is conjured up in the imagination. That image however is perhaps the extreme of religious discrimination as in so-called civilized nations such acts of discrimination are sanitized with diplomacy and State approvals. The religious discrimination as practised by State agencies was revealed in the recent meeting of the Joint Select Committee appointed to consider and report on Government Ministries (Part 1), Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises falling under those Ministries, held in the Parliament Chamber, (Tuesday  September 20th 2004). As if to give tacit support, the revelation got passing mention in some quarters of media, and failed to attract any of the social commentators’ attention.

The Joint Select Committee comprised of Mrs Parvatee Anmolsingh-Mahabir Chairman, Mr Rawle Titus — Vice Chairman and Members included Mr Wade Mark, Mr and Mr Ganga Singh. The team of officials present included Mr Earl Nesbitt — Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Public Utilities and the Environment, Mr Denis Singh — General Manager, T&TEC, Mr Ray MS Brathwaite — Executive Chairman, SWMCOL, Mr Errol Grimes — Chief Executive Officer, WASA, and Mr Anslym De Coteau Programme Co-ordinator NSDP. It is instructive to read selected extracts from the minutes of the meeting so that the aspect of state agencies’s religious discrimination can be fully appreciated. Mr Mark: I have no difficulty whatsoever with churches. I think they are institutions that play very critical roles in stabilising economies and societies in particular. I have observed in this report that millions of dollars have been spent repairing churches. I do not know what state these churches were in, but I do see a trend of the evangelical, these small Pentecostal churches.

If you look at the National Self-Help document, on page 1 of the document I see a church by the name of St Peters Spiritual Baptist Church. I do not know if my colleague, the Chairman of SWMCOL is part of this church because I know he is a Baptist. I see $100,000 being allocated to that church, and look at the date, 15.11.2002. If one goes to page 2 of the document another church, Revival Time Assembly — this Assembly was able to assemble from the State $350,000 for repairs. I have no difficulty with churches. I have problems with misallocation and misuse of taxpayer’s money for political purposes. You go to page 3 of this document, you see the Petit Valley Pentecostal Church, and there is also the Methodist Church. The St Peters Spiritual Baptist Church seems to be very lucky; it got another $400,000 dated December 1, 2002. I see on page 4 that the St Peters Parish Ethiopian Orthodox Church receiving $100,000 from the State. There is one called the Church On the Rock which received $200,000 from Trinidad and Tobago taxpayers and then there is a Methodist Church.

Ma’am, my question is a simple one. What criteria were used to allocate moneys and whether all churches, the Masjid, the Mandir — are the Muslims excluded? Are the Hindus excluded? Are the Roman Catholics excluded? Are the Anglicans excluded? What criteria had been used by the National self-help Commission in allocating millions of taxpayer’s dollars to these evangelical sects or churches? What is the basis? I want to know if there is discrimination in the allocation of resources in terms of church repairs in Trinidad and Tobago. Or is it part of the electoral, political campaign in the last election to win votes? We would like to get clarification from the Permanent Secretary on this very serious matter. Mr G Singh: Madam Chairman, it goes back to the fundamentals. If a programme is conceived in a way that it is meant to be partisan, discriminatory, and for political purposes, you will have that situation where the principal policy enunciator of the Government, the ministry in this instance, that the Permanent Secretary cannot establish for us at this point in time the criteria. But he has jurisdiction over a programme which allocates moneys through the NSDP for execution. So there is a disconnect between the policy and the execution, and the only explanation is that it is for political purposes.

Madam Chairman, I have two points to make; I want to respond to the Permanent Secretary with respect to the historical perspective, when we say historical here we mean in 2002 and if at the time of conception the genetic formulation is bad, then any amount of cover up a year later is insufficient because the body that has been formed will be bastardized and be inappropriate to carry out the functions for which it was conceived because of the infusion and injection of politically tainted material in the body of the NSDP. The second thing is that we cannot use the National Self-help Commission in a broad sense because the allocation is separate for that commission. What we have before us is the allocation to the Commission as an executing agency and in that allocation, there is a clear indication of the areas of churches Mr Mark went through, and he even skipped out some of them, but there is a clear appreciation that in this plural, multicultural and multi-religious society there is discrimination against several religions by virtue of the allocations in this NSDP. It goes back to the fundamentals... On the basis of your allocation and the works done, there is tremendous discrimination in this programme.”

The National Social Development Programme (NSDP) examined was for the October 2002 – July 2003. Not a single hindu institution got a cent of monetary support  from this state  agency. In this listing there were eighty nine (89) projects that included financial support to St Peters Spiritual Baptist Church $100,000, St Barnabas Church, Pleasantville $266,048, Jesus Elam Ministries $100,000, Febeau Open Bible $42,563.80 San Fernando Methodist School $117,000 Revival Time Assemble, Kings Wharf, San Fernando $350,045 Petit Valley Pentecostal Church $75,000, Methodist Church $51,250 St Peters Spiritual Baptist Church $400,000, St Barnabas Pre-school, Cedar Drive, P’ville, $350,000, St Peter’s Parish Ethiopian Orthodox Church San Fernando $100,000, Church on the Rock $200,000.