The considered main opposition National Democratic Congress has accused the ruling New National Party of using state funds to help in its re-election bid.

Calling it the latest scandal of the Keith Mitchell administration, NDC leader Tillman Thomas said the government is spending millions of dollars giving untendered contracts for projects, as well as abusing the programme aimed at giving youth job exposure.

“The NNP has hatched a sinister plot through which it is using state funds and resources to help it in its re-election bid. It is a plot hatched at the highest levels,” Thomas declared in a feature address at his party’s convention at the River Sallee government school on Sunday.

Calling the youth training Imani Project a noble idea, NDC said however the government is using it to buy votes by insisting that youths who want to be placed in the training scheme must do so by applying through the party offices in the various areas.

Thomas called this procedure an abuse and blatant attempt at direct politicking.

“Young people who want to benefit from the program being financed with state funds have to go to the NNP party office in the various constituencies. Young people who want to benefit from the program must have their voters’ registration card – which means, by NNP standards, if you can’t register to vote, you can’t eat,” he reported.

The NDC also said scores of projects, which should have been tendered, are now being handed out secretly by the government to what Thomas called its cronies.

“I tell you brothers and sisters, as we speak the NNP is presiding over the latest scandal,” he said.

“In a mad rush to try to buy votes, NNP is giving election-gimmick projects left, right and centre. They are giving more projects to their cronies – projects, which the rules say, must be tendered. But no tendering is now taking place,” the NDC leader complained.




Supplied by CARIBUPDATE