Jerry Enriquez Slams One‑Page Reply on Constituency Funds

After almost three months of waiting, social activist Jerry Enriquez finally got a response from the Office of the Prime Minister to his Freedom of Information request on constituency development funds, but it wasn’t what he asked for. Instead of a detailed breakdown, he received a single-page sheet listing only the monthly allocation per constituency. Enriquez is calling it inadequate and dismissive, saying it raises serious questions about transparency, accountability, and whether those funds are being distributed fairly. Here’s what Enriquez told us today.

 

Jerry Enriquez, Social Activist

“What I received yester evening January twenty-second is just a one-page document saying what each area representative and electoral division receives for each month. The information received fell very short, disappointingly short of what we had asked for and for all the extensions we had granted for the information we requested. I think the way we were responded to was very condescending and disrespectful and I would hope that the office of the prime minister treat the FOIA request with the seriousness it deserves. The citizens deserve to know that information and under the FOIA there should be nothing that withholds the government to present that to the public. That is public funds and the public has a right to know how these funds are allocated to each electoral division, how it is used, what it is used for and what s the process for accounting for its use each year and we need to know tat so that in our economy of fiscal restraint we need to know that these accountability mechanisms are in place. Just from that one page document it shows some gross discrepancies in the allocation of community development funds across constituencies. It seems as if it is a haphazard way that it is done. That is why we are asking what were the principle, what kind of data they use, what guides the level of allocations, especially when we have grossly imbalances electoral divisions.”