System glitch results in CARE message error

The government says it will be directly apologising to nearly 1,800 JUTA, JCAL and MAXI transport operators, who erroneously received a message that they were ineligible for grants under the COVID-19 Allocation of Resources for Employees (CARE) Programme on Thursday. 

The programme is being administered by the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service. 

It said a system error led to the messages, which indicated to the transport operators that they were ineligible for the grant because they were not registered with a municipality.

"As was stated in the CARE brochure, and reiterated since then, the GOJ’s CARE Programme general grants were designed to benefit JUTA, JCAL and MAXI transport workers, among other occupational groups," the release stated. 

It continued: "Individual eligibility for JUTA/JCAL/MAXI is being assessed by reference to Transport Authority and/or Tourism Product Company Development Company (TPDCo) registrations. This error message is being corrected and affected persons will receive a personal text message from CARE Programme apologising for the error."

It says general grants for the operators are being processed. Other groups, such as red caps, golf caddies, raft captains, independent tour guides and craft
vendors, will also receive their allocated grants by the end of next week. General grants for other occupational groups will follow. 

The government further updated that eligibility and verification processes for groups set to benefit from Business Employee Support and Transfer (BEST) Cash grants have been completed and that the funds are expected to be disseminated by the first half of next week. 

It said Supporting Employees with Transfer of Cash (SET Cash) payments for April have been made and disbursements for May had begun. 

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