Gail Alexan­der

The So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry which is tak­ing steps to treat with fic­ti­tious rental ap­pli­ca­tions has for­ward­ed 31 rental ap­pli­ca­tions to the Po­lice Ser­vice for in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox who con­firmed this Tues­day, cit­ed fic­ti­tious rental ap­pli­ca­tions among dis­crep­an­cies the Min­istry has iden­ti­fied.

She in­di­cat­ed this in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day re­ply­ing to queries from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Paul Richards on dis­crep­an­cies high­light­ed in the 2020 Au­di­tor Gen­er­al's re­port con­cern­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of Food and In­come sup­port grants.

Cox said, "The Min­istry hav­ing iden­ti­fied that a num­ber of dis­crep­an­cies oc­curred dur­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of COVID-19 Food and In­come Sup­port Grants for 2020, un­der­took a re­view of its sys­tems and in­ter­nal con­trols to ad­dress iden­ti­fied dis­crep­an­cies."

"The range of dis­crep­an­cies are var­ied and are still emerg­ing as each ap­pli­ca­tion is cur­rent­ly au­dit­ed."

"To date the ma­jor dis­crep­an­cies iden­ti­fied were: per­sons who were em­ployed and con­tin­ued to be em­ployed dur­ing ap­ply­ing for and re­ceiv­ing grants; per­sons re­ceiv­ing grants from both the Min­istries of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices and Fi­nance; and per­sons who were not in need of rental as­sis­tance, sub­mit­ting fic­ti­tious doc­u­ments to sup­port their ap­pli­ca­tions for the grant."

The Min­istry ad­dressed is­sues with the fol­low­ing mea­sures:

• Ap­pli­ca­tions were placed on­line.

• The val­i­da­tion process be­came more ro­bust.

• Da­ta shar­ing with the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board and the Min­istry of Fi­nance be­came time­ly to en­sure that dou­ble-dip­ping was elim­i­nat­ed al­to­geth­er.

• For­mal and in­for­mal en­quiries to known reg­is­tered em­ploy­ers were un­der­tak­en to val­i­date the in­for­ma­tion.

• An on­line so­lu­tion was built to fa­cil­i­tate end to end col­lec­tion and pro­cess­ing of client ap­pli­ca­tions.

Cox said the Min­istry im­ple­ment­ed ad­di­tion­al sys­tems due to the prob­lems dis­cov­ered. The Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Min­istry is ad­vis­ing on risk as­sess­ment.

A four-phased dig­i­ti­za­tion pro­gramme - the In­te­grat­ed So­cial En­ter­prise Man­age­ment Sys­tem - to han­dle pro­cess­ings of all grants and pro­grammes will be com­plet­ed be­fore year's end in­stead of the orig­i­nal­ly es­ti­mat­ed end of fis­cal 2021. It's 60 per cent com­plet­ed.

Cox ex­plained "The Min­istry's orig­i­nal dead­line for com­ple­tion must be ad­just­ed due to a num­ber of unan­tic­i­pat­ed changes to the project. These in­clude unan­tic­i­pat­ed changes in the project’s in­fra­struc­ture; ad­di­tions to the project scope to fa­cil­i­tate end to end pro­cess­ing; and de­lay in the con­struc­tion works at two of­fices to ac­com­mo­date the new ser­vice de­liv­ery mod­ule, due to COVID-19 pan­dem­ic lock­down mea­sures."

She said mea­sures to treat with the is­sues were tak­en. The Min­istry aims to com­mence the pro­duc­tion phase at three sites and com­plete roll-out to all dur­ing fis­cal 2023.

SEA change team re­port­ing Au­gust

Sen­ate Leader Clarence Ramb­harath said the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee es­tab­lished in last No­vem­ber to fur­ther re­view changes to the con­duct of the SEA ex­am and tran­si­tion to sec­ondary school and the Con­cor­dat, is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to sub­mit their re­port by Au­gust.

On why the TT Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) wasn't in­vit­ed to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Ed­u­ca­tion, Ramb­harath not­ed TTUTA has a le­gal right with the Min­istry and isn't de­prived and al­so Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion must be con­sid­ered so there was no re­quire­ment for TTUTA.

On when the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly owned Sanc­tu­ary Vil­las and Man­ta Lodge ho­tels will open, Ramb­harat said sup­ply chain is­sues and COVID is­sues have de­layed this and dis­cre­tionary mon­ey was al­so redi­rect­ed to the health sec­tor for the COVID fight.