Under suspicion that up to 80 per cent of the people to access government's TTCards in the five years did so fraudulently, Social Development Minister Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn yesterday promised an audit into the programme.
Crichlow-Cockburn, in her contribution to the Budget debate in the Lower House, said the programme is to be revamped to fulfill its original intention of providing relief to persons in need.
Popularly called the “food card”, the former People's Partnership government had announced its intention to assimilate the TTCard into a biometric Smart Card programme that would help the elimination of fraud.
Former Social Development minister, Christine Newallo-Hosein, in August this year admitted that the fraud under the programme had led to millions of taxpayer dollars being lost. Up to 4,000 card holders had been decommissioned right away, she had said, and she indicated that an audit of the programme was to take place.
Crichlow-Cockburn said yesterday it had been noted that up to 80 per cent of temporary card holders had not attempted to secure permanent cards, which suggested that those people would not have been able to provide the documentation to prove their eligibility.
The TTCards were introduced by former prime minister Patrick Manning in 2006 as a “Food Debit Card” under the Targeted Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, to help needy citizens cope with the worldwide phenomenon of high food prices.
The arrangement provided a grant of $300, $400 or $500 for relevant vulnerable families of three, four or five and over 32,000 people had benefited, he said.
In addition to to the upcoming audit, Crichlow-Cockburn said cards will soon only be distributed at the ministry's offices.
Addressing the Opposition People's Partnership's claim that the People's National Movement (PNM) is currenty purging the civil labour system of people hired under the previous government, Crichlow-Cockburn said the PP's concern might arise from the fact that so many of its people are within State enterprises. The number of contract workers approved for that ministry was 129, Crichlow-Cockburn said, but the current figure stood at 529 short-term employees.
Many people were also having their employment recycled, she said.
Crichlow-Cockburn said the issue of overstaffing would have to be dealt with as many of those people were not qualified for their positions.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Kim Boodram
Quelle/Source: Trinidad & Tobago Express, 10.10.2015
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