Lotto and Funding

Here I was talking about money and next thing there is coverage of the funds Lotto distributed following a special lotto draw following Gabrielle.

Early on there was disquiet about what was going on with the lotto funds but it is not an easy task deciding who would receive funds and how much.

I have to say I was extremely grateful to receive a small amount of assistance from Lotto distributed through a local organisation. I made it go a long way .

The distribution was in the vicinity of $14 million and when spread out over the affected areas was a big help to many small organisations that were then able to identify how best to utilise.

It would be good to discover why some particular parties were reputed to be given sums in the vicinity of $10m for very small communities .These were Government grants mentioned in discussions with many who assisted during the cleanup and restoration.

There are indications this was true as evidence is plain to see when travelling around .

This raise the question about help and assistance once again. 

In Australia the recent floods have seen affected people and businesses given grants around $20,000 and in the USA following North Carolina flooding the people were given $50,000 to help overcome the disaster.

In New Zealand nothing .

There is a multitude of situations that become apparent following a disaster . Everyone is different .Some insured , some not. Some with no debt. Some with debt to the eyeballs. Just a reflection of a community at a moment in time.

What is the answer?

My thinking now is that a grant of some kind , not just $1000 is required to soften the impact and help people get back on their feet.

The idea that we have a Council that is sitting on a $500 million investment at this time. One might say waiting for a rainy day,  and they are so miserable they look at ways of extracting more money from ratepayers , then I say something is very wrong.

We need to look at the legislation around possibly making a distribution from squirrelled funds that belong to the ratepayers.