Social Services Minister Melanie Griffin said there may be as many as 4,000 or more people in New Providence alone using the new prepaid debit card from Social Services by the end of June.The cards will start being handed out to people who access food vouchers from the ministry's Horseshoe Drive center today.

Griffin spoke with Guardian Business yesterday about the implementation of the new program, through which prepaid Bank of The Bahamas Visa cards are issued to Social Services clients for use at grocery stores and other food sellers. It is the first phase of what the Christie administration is referring to as a social services safety net.

The cards - which last three years - are loaded automatically at the end of each month with whatever assistance the client receives from the ministry.

Exceeded Expectations

"The implementation has gone very smoothly. In fact, it has exceeded our expectations. We are (today) implementing it at the final center in New Providence," Griffin said, noting the Ministry's four outreach centers.

The card is already "implemented" in Wulff Road, Fox Hill and Robinson Road. Once it is put in place at the Horseshoe Drive center, that will mean all those people who use that center to interface with the Ministry of Social Services will be able to collect their cards from the center.

"We can say it's been well-received, and the impact of it is almost immediate in many ways. First of all, it eliminates immediately the long wait of clients in long lines to receive food coupons at the end of the month, and all the centers so far are indicating that that has happened."

"And it's an advantage for the client," she added. "They don't have to go to the centers any more at the end of each month."

Griffin was quick to acknowledge that the rollout has not been perfect.

"It has had some glitches, but nothing major that we haven't been able to deal with," she said, citing such issues as misspelled names for example.

"At each rollout you learn from whatever the glitches are and you improve upon it for the next one, so we expect minimal glitches at Horseshoe Drive."

Abuses Discovered

And, in fact, the minister said the process has uncovered other issues.

"The implementation of the card has allowed us to uncover quite a lot of abuses of the system, whereby there were persons who should have come off of the program because their situations may have changed or various (other) reasons.

"There are persons on the program who should not be. And some persons, when you say that to them, are very willing to terminate from the program, but there are some who - depending on their circumstances - believe that they should be reconsidered," she said.

"So we have an appeals process in place that has been working very well, and again, we've tried to improve the system of appeal to make it very smooth and very quick for those persons who wish to be reviewed."

The Ministry Of Social Services and Community Development, along with representatives of the Bank of The Bahamas, will conduct a training session for recipients of Social Services new prepaid card today at 10AM at Golden Gates World Outreach Ministries, Carmichael Road.

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