What a wickedness

THE EDITOR, Sir:

KINDLY allow me to explain to you my grievous state of affairs. As a poor widow I know not where to turn.

My husband was a sugar worker in Jamaica. At the time when the Government established the National Housing Trust he was working at the Monymusk sugar estate in Clarendon. From 1976 they (NHT) began withdrawing money out of his weekly earnings until 1985. He left Monymusk and came to work at the Mignott Sugar Estate in Clarendon Park right up until 1994 when he became ill.

From 1976 up to 1994 the NHT was withdrawing from his weekly pay. In 1994 he signed up a set of papers which they sent to him. He went up and down to get them signed and send up. Up to the time of his death in August 1996 he still did not get any benefit from the NHT. Before he died in 1996 he told me, his wife, that I must try for it and repair the roof of our house, which is in a very deplorable condition.

For three years I have been fighting the NHT to get it. First they gave me a letter to take to the Monymusk accountant. The accountant at Monymusk sent me back to May Pen with the letter. When I went back to the NHT office in May Pen they searched and said they have the file from Monymusk, but they don't have that from Mignott Sugar Estate, which I took back to the NHT office in May Pen.

I went through a lot of problems from Justice of the Peace to the office in Kingston. I have to get out death certificate, funeral receipt, doctors certificate (which was natural cause) and other important papers. I have three children for whom I have also signed up their birth certificates and other documents. After everything was completed and I have been checking with them (NHT) for two years they send and said that they cannot find the file. They gave me another set of papers to sign and it took the same ups and downs to get them signed and sent back to the head office in Kingston.

After waiting for another year I was very glad when I was told that the cheque is at the NHT office in May Pen.

I was so overjoyed to know that at last my house roof will now be repaired.

When I collected the cheque I almost fainted with shock. It turned out to be One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Nine Dollars. My husband's 17 years of hard labour plus not even half of what I spent to get the file ready, did I receive. What a wickedness!

It is time they stop deceiving the poor when they withdraw NHT out of their earnings to build house to sell to the rich. What a fraud the National Housing Trust is! I will never cash this cheque. I want it to show the world.

I am, etc.,

MRS. MINORA CRAWFORD

Scotts Pass Dist,

Scotts Pass PA,

Clarendon

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