St. George’s, December 3, 2009 (GIS) – Finance Minister, Hon. Nazim Burke, has described a draft report on poverty assessment in Grenada as “quite disturbing.’’ The Country Poverty Assessment – carried out over a period from 2008 to 2009 – was undertaken by the Trinidad and Tobago firm, Kari Consultants Limited, with support from the Caribbean Development Bank. It revealed that the poverty rate in Grenada rose from 32.1 percent in 1998 to 37.7 percent in 2008 – a poverty level second only Dominica among countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. The highest incidences of poverty were said to be in the parish of St. Patrick, followed by St. Mark and St. Andrew. The report, which also showed a steep population increase in St. George’s, with the migration of residents from rural communities to the capital, reflects on the policies of the former administration which was booted from office last year, Finance Minister Burke said. However, the Minister has expressed the determination of the current National Democratic Congress government to address poverty and other social problems confronting the nation. The statistics presented by Kari Consultants are also a reflection of the “poverty of policies’’ of the former NNP administration, said Mr. Burke. “These numbers reflect, in a sense, the poverty of the policies themselves that were implemented by the former government,’’ the Minister said. “We must make it quite clear that what we are being presented with are numbers that reflect the situation in the country as of June 2008, extending into July 2008.’’ The assessment, added Mr. Burke, does not capture “any of the policy measures that have been implemented’’ by the National Democratic Congress government, which won an 11 – 4 election victory on July 8, 2008. “It does not reflect,’’ the Finance Minister explained, “any of the steps that have been taken to improve on the social safety nets by our government, but – in fact – reflect the policies that were adopted by the New National Party administration over the last 10 years, between 1998 and 2008.’’ Hon. Burke, who is also Minister responsible for Planning and the Economy, accused the ousted administration of simply talking about poverty-alleviation but doing very little about it. He also blasted their social policies for not being “people-centred.’’ “They did not focus on improving the lives of persons,’’ Mr. Burke charged. “Whereas they did put in place some large infrastructural projects, they did not put people at the centre of the development effort. That is why today we have descended into a higher level of poverty.’’ Minister Burke said what was needed was a “good set of policies’’ by the NNP in areas such as agriculture revitalisation. With that, he said, the nation would not have been experiencing such a high level of poverty. “We would have found, for example, that the drift from rural communities into urban communities would not have been so remarkable, had it not been for the lack of good policies,’’ Mr. Burke said. “So we want to make it clear that this situation that we are seeing today must be placed very squarely at the feet of the New National Party administration.’’ However, Mr. Burke said Prime Minister Hon. Tillman Thomas and his government team are committed to “turn the situation around and to ensure that we can pull our people out of the depths of this poverty.’’