New­ly-ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment Don­na Cox says her first or­der of busi­ness as min­is­ter is the dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion of grants and so­cial ser­vices sys­tem.

Min­is­ter Cox said she was pleased with her new as­sign­ment, be­cause she will be lead­ing the charge in help­ing, em­pow­er­ing and trans­form­ing lives of the vul­ner­a­ble in our so­ci­ety.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment:

Dig­i­ti­za­tion of the grants and so­cial ser­vices sys­tem will be among the first or­der of busi­ness for new­ly ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Don­na Cox who as­sumed her new port­fo­lio at the Min­istry last Fri­day 21st Au­gust 2020.

The Min­is­ter re­ceived a warm wel­come by staff at the Min­istry. On hand to greet the Min­is­ter was Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Mrs Jac­in­ta Bai­ley-Sobers, Act­ing Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Ms Sheila Seecha­ran and Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, Mr Vi­jay Gan­gaper­sad.

Min­is­ter Cox brings ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in the fields of com­mu­ni­ca­tions and the pub­lic ser­vice to her new ap­point­ment. She was the Par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Laven­tille East/Mor­vant from 2007 to 2010 and from 2010 to 2015. She served as Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs from 2007 to 2008 and Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty from 2008 to 2010. Be­fore her ap­point­ment to this Min­istry, she served as the Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

While speak­ing with mem­bers of the me­dia, Min­is­ter Cox said she was pleased with her new as­sign­ment, be­cause she will be lead­ing the charge in help­ing, em­pow­er­ing and trans­form­ing lives of the vul­ner­a­ble in our so­ci­ety. She ac­knowl­edged the phe­nom­e­nal work that was achieved by her pre­de­ces­sors at the Min­istry dur­ing the last five years, in­clu­sive of the work that has been on-go­ing to bring im­me­di­ate and holis­tic re­lief to those most in need; par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing this pe­ri­od of so­cial and eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty.

While she ad­mit­ted that she was for­tu­nate to have a sol­id and cred­i­ble foun­da­tion on which to ex­pand on, Min­is­ter Cox was as equal­ly quick to high­light the crit­i­cal im­por­tance of this Min­istry in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al re­cov­ery ef­forts. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Min­is­ter Cox said among her first or­der of busi­ness will be to fo­cus on mak­ing quick and ef­fi­cient ac­cess to the Min­istry’s grants and ser­vices avail­able to the cit­i­zen­ry. In this re­gard, the dig­i­ti­za­tion of the grants and so­cial ser­vices sys­tem will be of ut­most im­por­tance, be­cause ac­cord­ing to the Min­is­ter: “Peo­ple in need can­not wait.”

The Min­is­ter al­so ac­knowl­edged that the Min­istry re­cent­ly launched an In­ter­nal Val­ues, At­ti­tudes and Be­hav­iours (VABS) Cam­paign, which will as­sist the staff in be­com­ing more client-cen­tred. She there­fore looks for­ward to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Na­tion­al VABs cam­paign at the cusp of the com­mem­o­ra­tion of our coun­try’s 58th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence. This she feels will sig­nal a call to the na­tion that we are all in this to­geth­er and will be equal­ly in­stru­men­tal in tak­ing our cit­i­zen­ry back to its civic roots.

The Min­is­ter end­ed by in­di­cat­ing that there is need to re­vi­tal­ize a sense of na­tion­al pride, in­no­va­tion and re­silience in our coun­try; and be­lieves that this will as­sist in trans­form­ing the cul­ture of de­pen­den­cy in­to one of sus­tain­abil­i­ty. The Ex­ec­u­tive and staff of the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices look for­ward to work­ing close­ly with Min­is­ter Cox in all ef­forts to pos­i­tive­ly trans­form the lives of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go through the pro­vi­sion of qual­i­ty so­cial ser­vices.