Minister of the People, Social Development and Family Services, Vandana Mohit, says renewed emphasis is being placed on the Standardised Means Test, the tool used to determine eligibility for government assistance.
She expressed confidence that, under her leadership, improvements to the system will promote greater fairness and transparency, ensuring that citizens can access government support more equitably.
After reviewing the Means Test, which she said has been unchanged since 2016, Minister Mohit noted that several vulnerable individuals were being unfairly excluded from assistance.
She said this prompted her Ministry to move swiftly to address the issue.
“We would have consulted with every unit in this Ministry and one of the things we recognised is that persons were failing the Means Test by one dollar, which was something very shocking for us. So what we decided to do is to assess and have our Social Services Advisor at the Ministry and our SID Unit at the time really deal with this issue as a matter of urgency.”
The Minister said the revised framework has already received Cabinet approval and is now moving into the implementation phase.
“Cabinet accepted the recommendations, and what we are doing right now is we are putting in place the new Standard Means Test, which should be ready and in use at all our Social Services Centres in June of this year.”