Residents Urged to Start Community Groups to Access CDF Fund

Project Manager of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), Cavell Francis-Rhiney, has urged South West Clarendon residents to form community groups to develop project documents to benefit from the Fund.
Mrs. Francis-Rhiney was addressing a community consultation meeting, convened to identify some of the developmental issues facing the constituency, and to determine how best they can be addressed through the CDF.
She said that for projects to be approved for CDF funding, they must meet a set of criteria, including the ability to be self-sustaining.
“We cannot just approve projects and there is no sustainability, there’s no justification, there is no indication that the project will benefit a majority of the community,” she said.
Mrs. Francis-Rhiney added that the assistance of teachers and university students living in the community should be enlisted, in an effort to ensure the proposals and project documents are properly formulated, or they would not be approved.
Member of Parliament for South West Clarendon, Noel Arscott, told JIS News that the CDF was a source of funds through which particular issues could be addressed, and was “useful in many ways.”
“On a community basis, we have been able to do quite a bit in terms of education, back to school programmes, minor roads in terms of marl or grading them, clean some drains, and direct our sports programme, (including) domino, football and cricket,” Mr. Arscott said.
“The CDF has been useful, in the sense that we have been able to address a lot of minor problems. We are able to help in small ways to alleviate some of the pressures and problems that people face in the various communities,” he stated.