By Louis B Homer South Bureau
Mike Maharaj was having trouble getting his National Insurance Scheme's sickness benefit approved.
"I went to my Member of Parliament on three occasions, and each time I was told to come back. When I could wait no longer, I went to Mr Panday and, in ten days, I got my benefit approved by the NIS," said Maharaj, who hails from Claxton Bay.
The Panday that Maharaj is referring to none other than Basdeo Panday, United National Congress founder and political leader and a former prime minister, the man who political pundits are insisting that, despite his electoral licking last year, is still in the political game, just biding his time for a return.
It is a notion that Panday dismisses completely, saying no one should expect a return from him to active politics.
His focus, he says, is on fostering non-electoral politics through the formation of the Basdeo Panday Foundation.
In an interview last Wednesday at his office at the Rienzi Complex, Couva, Panday said there was more to politics than going to Parliament.
"I have embarked on non-electoral politics, and that is the way I intend to go for as long as I am able to serve my people," he said.
"I am paying a monthly rental of $3,000 to serve people who are in need. That, of course, excludes me. My need is to serve people at all levels, especially when they fail to get a positive response, or even an interview, with their parliamentary representative.
"People from different walks of life walk into my office without an appointment and they are never turned away," he said.
With his signature grin and trademark silver hair, Panday, who lost the Couva North seat to Ramona Ramdial, said the idea of forming the foundation had its beginning in the period when he was booted out of active politics.
"People thought I had become frustrated but to me it was an opportunity to reflect on many things. Past, present and to come. I decided after a short spell that it was a good thing for me, because I felt a sense of relief and I was no longer overworked," he said.
He said the decision to form the foundation was a family one.
"All my immediate family members were involved," he said of the foundation, which was registered on October 7, 2010 as "a non-profit organisation which is funded by people with a vested interest in helping people who are dispossessed".
Panday noted, however, that "not only dispossessed people come here, but others who feel they are marginalised for one reason or another".
He said he initially thought he could serve people from his law office in San Fernando but discovered that "the demand was so great that I had to do something very quickly".
"An average of 60 people each week keep knocking at the open doors of the foundation. They come from all over the country, and no one is turned away," he said.
He said for people who were not physically able to come to the office, he makes appointments to visit them at their homes. "And they can also telephone me and I will respond accordingly," he said.
Panday said a large number of people come to him looking for houses. "I don't have any to give them, but what I do is to make a strong recommendation to the authorities and very often it works," he said.
He said, apart from housing, people come to him for legal advice, problems with the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) and other public utilities.
Helping people with no financial means is nothing new to Panday.
"When I was in active legal practice, there were people who had no money but they needed my help. Sometimes all they could afford was a hand of fig, a pumpkin, a few baigan and sometimes nothing, but I never turned them away," he said.
In the old days, money was not everything, there was bartering and there was goodwill, he recalled.
"I have said it before, and I am repeating myself, so long as there is life in me, I will continue the struggle for the improvement in the quality of life for my people," he said.
