Gov’t taking action to clamp down on abuse of welfare services

By Anesta Henry

The Welfare Department will be investigating whether any of its 6 000 existing clients need to be bumped off the list of people receiving assistance, and putting checks and balances in place to prevent further abuse of the system.

Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey, who made the disclosure on Wednesday, said this action is being taken as it has been discovered there are people who continue to “trick the system”.

He said that based on the evidence from the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), some individuals continue to receive welfare grants even though they have obtained gainful employment.

“We have committed the resources to go through each and every person, one by one, visit the households, determine if the person is indeed still in a circumstance that requires that they be on the welfare list, and to be able to clean that list. Now, it may not result in the list being a smaller list, but it would result in the list being an accurate list so that we know who is deserving of welfare,” Humphrey disclosed as he delivered remarks at the opening of a meeting of the National Task Force on Homelessness at the Radisson Aquatica Resort. 

“I hate to say it, but it is the truth that there are some people who try to trick the system and deny other people the opportunity to benefit from the limited resources that the Government has.”

He added: “We have people who present at Welfare, they leave Welfare and then try to present at the National Assistance Board, they go to your various agencies. That is why the management information system that we are now working on allows us all to plug in, allows us all to be feeding from the same plate, to be reading from the same page; and tells us exactly who and where they are getting their resources from, for the Government to be able to make proper decisions.”

Noting that the COVID-19 pandemic had placed great pressure on Barbadians over the past few years, Humphrey added that checks and assessments will also be done to determine whether persons need different types of or additional intervention. 

“So, for example, we might be assessing a household and we are giving one person in the house the support, we may find that two people need the support,” he said.

Humphrey also indicated that the Government’s increase of the welfare grant by 40 per cent to make sure that clients were able to deal with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic may have to be reviewed.

“I would also want to say to you that the Welfare Department pays rent now for about 300 persons across Barbados. And, of course, there are still a number of persons who are coming forward seeking the Government’s support for assistance with rent and that rent payment has increased between 2018 and 2022 by almost 80 per cent, from $1.08 million to $1.9 million. So, there is great evidence that there are circumstances that are driving people to seek housing and that we must be able to address those circumstances,” he added. 

anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb