Published On:Friday, January 27, 2012

By NATARIO MCKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE GOVERNMENT spends over $10 million annually on its Food Assistance Program, the assistant director of social services yesterday disclosing that New Providence residents receiving this benefit had doubled in number to 12,000 over the past three years.

Speaking at a meeting of the Rotary Club of West Nassau, Kim Sawyer said: "We are faced with the dilemma of assisting those persons who are overburdened with debt. We find that, for the most part, the situation is one of choice and the inability to manage life's needs from one's wants. This is currently a real challenge.

"A lot of persons we see on a daily basis are not necessarily unemployed, but persons who are employed and max out their salaries with salary deductions. We particularly see this in the public service and the hotel industry, and then they are faced with coming to the department to provide them with food assistance and, sometimes, housing."

Ms Sawyer said that 12,000 people are given food assistance on a monthly basis in New Providence, amounting to some $900,000 per month, an increase from the 5,000-6,000 who received it in 2008.

She told Tribune Business: "We really saw a significant increase in 2008. Even though some of those people have got back to work, they are not being employed at the level they were.

"Even though over time they would have made adjustments to their commitments, there are some commitments they can't adjust to the level they are earning now. There are some persons we would have had to carry a little longer than we would have anticipated."

According to Ms Sawyer, $6.6 million is spent yearly on the Food Assistance Programme in New Providence, $3 million in Grand Bahama and about $1 million in the Family Islands.

A report by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) revealed that just 45 per cent of the Food Stamps issued by the Department of Social Services go to the poorest 20 per cent of Bahamian households, raising immediate questions of whether the system is being abused by wealthier persons and those with the right 'connections'.

Ms Sawyer said: "We have situations where persons learn our system and go from centre to centre within the same time period, getting assistance. We sit with them, let them know this is not how to do it, and sometimes we suspend them from the programme depending on the severity of it. We could suspend them for three months, six months or a year, or we could refer the matter to police."

Ms Sawyer said reforms to the social assistance programme would help to better identify those persons who truly need assistance.

"With the reform, one of the changes would be the beneficiary identification system; how we go about identifying those persons who would benefit from the assistance we provide," she said.

"Basically, right now we get information, we do our social history report, vet the information and someone makes a decision whether that person would get the assistance or not. Right now it's very subjective. What is proposed is that we get the information. That goes into a computer, a person gets a score and based on that score it would determine whether they would get the assistance or not."