Questions need answering honestly.
Me: Can I please request a laptop and ipad for a lady that has just recovered from a 3 week coma? She is still in hospital.
Agency: No sorry all the laptops and ipads were handed out weeks ago.
ME: Yes well she was in a coma. She is lucky to have survived. surely you can access the funds necessary to purchase an ipad or laptop.
Agency: No. Sorry.
ME: but there’s close to £20million donated by people for Grenfell Tower residents. Why can’t you just acces those funds.
Agency: No sorry. They can buy it with the emergency money handed out already.
ME: How about the clothing vouchers. She was in a coma when the M&S vouchers were handed out. Can I get the vouchers so now that she’s up and walking she can wear some decent new clothes?
Agency: No sorry. Those are gone too.
So thank you FA and Adel and Usain Bolt and all the wonderful people in this country and abroad who have donated money in response to this awful tragedy.
But the truth is that no one knows where this money is, who is controlling it, making decisions about disbursement. There have been rumblings for about 4 weeks now but finally the Residents got to vent about it in a closed door meeting with the people who’re supposedly taking care of the money.
With £20m in the bank RBKC is drawing down on this money ‘for ongoing voluntary organisation commitments’ and presumably interest is accruing on a daily basis too.
My sneaky suspicion is that RBKC will present a bill for the hotel accommodation and all the ridiculous keyworker system they put in place that had everyone going bonkers for over 6 weeks. All these expenses will be added up and my instinct is somehow deducted from the £20m donations. Wait and see.
Meanwhile some bloke I know has to rummage to find a pair of trousers to fit him, another a jacket and a woman who had the most miraculous escape from the jaws of hell, says ‘I don’t know what I can ask for. What can I have? I don’t want to be greedy or ask for anything.’
Who is the decent human being here? Who ?
Kimia Zabihyan
