Ministry continues drive to reach targeted persons for Social Pension Programme

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security is reporting that work continues in earnest to reach persons being targeted for the Government’s Social Pension Programme.

The programme, which officially came on stream in 2021, is geared towards Jamaican citizens 75 years and older who are not currently in receipt of a pension (overseas or local) or any other retirement, old-age or disability benefit or regular income, and are not living in a government institutionalised care facility.

Permanent secretary in the ministry, Collette Roberts Risden, told JIS News that the ministry has, so far, reached 50 per cent of the targeted 30,000 persons.

“It is a programme that because of the age group does have a high turnover rate, meaning we have people exiting the programme because, of course, the older you are the higher the mortality rate, and we have people coming on the programme, so we have approximately 12,000 persons,” she explained.

“The effort to find persons to get them on the programme continues, and we have been working with a number of community groups, MPs, councillors and so forth to identify our senior citizens that are in need of the programme and not able to benefit,” she added.

Roberts Risden noted that the labour and social security ministry is also in the process of reviewing the programme with the aim of refining the process of verification for eligible applicants.

“We are also in the process of reviewing some of the elements for that programme. The two main criteria are age and no source of income and because of that, the programme has been very stringent on age. We find out that many of our elderly persons, the older they get, the harder it is for them to have sufficient proof documents that prove their age,” Roberts Risden noted.

“So, we have been working with the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) and we are looking at developing other strategies within the ministry to utilise, so that we can include more persons verifying their identity and their age, so that they can be included in the programme,” she added.

To register for this benefit, persons may visit the parish offices of the ministry islandwide.

They will be required to complete a Social Pension application form, accompanied by their Tax Registration Number (TRN), proof of age in the form of a birth certificate or a valid passport.