SDC bearing scars of political interference in former years – Desmond McKenzie

WESTERN BUREAU:

Desmond McKenzie, portfolio minister with responsibility for the Social Development Commission (SDC) says the commission has taken several hits that have tarnished its reputation as a result of political interferences in former years.

The local government and rural development minister said the 85-year-old organisation, prior to 2016, had moved away from its core responsibilities because of politics, which have forced the country’s youths who once relied on the SDC for guidance to be otherwise minded.

“The basis of the SDC was to build community participation, and it was the feeding tree for young people in Jamaica. But our politics have desecrated that foundation that the Jamaica Social Welfare [now the Social Development Commission] was built on,” said McKenzie.

He made the remarks at the Social Development Commission Long Service, Retirement and Staff Recognition Awards ceremony at the Montego Bay Convention Center in St. James.

McKenzie argued that, “if the truth be told over the years, there have been scars on the organisation, whether real or imaginary involvement in political activities which is not your responsibility”.

McKenzie who lauded the 79 awardees said the Andrew Holness administration has set the policies under which the Social Development Commission should carry out its functions in building communities and engaging young people and have themselves stated out of the operations, leaving it to those entrusted to so.

“But if the organisation is to win the trust and the respect of the various communities that you interact with on a daily basis, then the organisation must be seen as clean and uncontaminated,” he warned staff at the SDC.

“In order to gain trust, people must, first of all, believe in you, and if they can’t believe in what you say, then you will find yourself serving one set of people,” McKenzie said.

In the last seven years, McKenzie noted that the SDC, though still bearing political scars, is comfortable with their operations to date.

“I have had no real issues with how you have operated since 2016, those concerns that have come to me I was not afraid of, and will never be afraid to raise them, and to insist that the organisation stays pure,” McKenzie said.

He said the SDC, as an organisation, should endeavour to be a virgin, free of political injection.