The PAP provides a stipend of $500 monthly to households whose gross monthly income is less than $3,000.
“Everything is excellent and I feel good,” said retiree Cephas Manners, who said he planned to use the money to pay bills.
“I am very excited and thankful. I am going to make a big shopping for my family,” said Carlene Caines, another beneficiary of the programme. “I think it is something very good that they [the government] are doing for the country to help out everybody,” she added.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Beatrice Rose Greenaway, who said that “this is wonderful. I have been supporting this thing for years.”
Another beneficiary Dion Hon, thanked Prime Minister Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris for the leadership he has shown by expressing: “The prime minister is ‘good people’ and I thank them [the government] very much.”
At today’s launch, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Community Development, Gender Affairs and Social Services, Janelle Lewis Tafari, said the funds were “not a hand out but a hand up.”
“Many of us here will know about how poverty affects us. For the older person who cannot afford medication, instead of taking medication every day, they decide I will take on Monday, skip Tuesday, take Wednesday, and so forth—the poor household where the children don’t get enough to eat and they have to decide well I can’t go to school because I have a hungry tummy,” Ms. Lewis said.
Prime Minister Harris said today’s launch is a “blow against poverty and hunger” and encouraged persons to make use of the funds wisely.
There are close to 4,000 households set to benefit from the PAP.
