EDITORIAL- A complete waste of our development funds

UP to $6.8 million will be dished out to each of the 50 constituencies this year.

That’s $340 million in total.

By our standard, this is a huge amount of money.

Used wisely and for its intended purpose, it would bring in the kind of development we would like to see in our rural areas.

But this is not the first time our constituencies have been allocated this huge funding.

Under previous budgets, Constituency Development Fund (CDF) has always been allocated the lion’s share of the money.

As the name suggests, this is money intended to develop our constituencies.

But how much of the money has been used to develop our constituencies?

How much of it has reached the people down there in the villages?

If you visit the constituencies now, you’ll notice the amount of money allocated for CDF each year does not equate what you see on the ground.

In fact, you’ll be surprise to note that there’s virtually nothing tangible we could speak of in the constituencies that is built out of CDF. Nothing!

If you see a school or clinic down there, it is either built by donors or through other funding.

Frankly, CDF has nothing to show for in terms of development in our constituencies.

So why are we still allocating a huge chunk of our development funds to CDF when it has nothing to show for nation-wide?

Are we so dump not to realise that CDF is a complete waste of our meager financial resources?

To allocate $340 million a year for rural development only to see no tangible development down there is beyond normal thinking.

Yet, year after year, the Government continues to entertain CDF. And keep allocating our development funds to a cause that brings no return.

The problem is CDF is controlled by our MPs.

As long as this practice continues, we will get nowhere with CDF.

In fact it will become a drain to our meager development funds.

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