Ulster Unionist Leader Tom Elliott has highlighted the lack of progress made by the OFMdFM in taking forward the £80 Million Social Investment fund project.
Following a meeting of the OFMdFM Committee today, Mr Elliott who is the Chair of the Committee said:
‘It is now a year since the Social Investment Fund was established in March 2011.
I find it quite incredible that the Executive requires less than three weeks to digest all the responses to the Programme for Government, yet three months after the consultation process regarding the Social Investment Fund closed we are still waiting for an outcome.
Furthermore, at today’s Committee meeting we learned that there is still no timeline as to when they will be ready to commence funding and that major decisions are still required from OFMdFM.
In addition, there appears to have been little difficulty in rolling over £8 million from this year’s budget, which is quite remarkable bearing in mind the difficulties that similar requests have faced in the past.
Finally, I was most interested to learn that the Department is looking to spend money on advanced projects rather than new projects.
The Ulster Unionists have always had concerns regarding the Social Investment Fund and its potential to be used as a “slush fund” by the DUP and Sinn Fein in an attempt to gain patronage and curry favour with certain community groups and organisations. Nothing we have seen so far has changed this opinion.”