Fur­ther moves will be ini­ti­at­ed in about two weeks to weed out pos­si­ble fraud­u­lent pen­sion and grant re­ceipts - this time tar­get­ing per­pe­tra­tors over­seas.

This as the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry will be re­ceiv­ing im­mi­gra­tion da­ta and ac­cess­ing the trav­el in­for­ma­tion of so­cial wel­fare grant re­cip­i­ents.

“This sys­tem is to pick up on who are liv­ing abroad and ac­cess­ing grants and pen­sions fraud­u­lent­ly,” So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox said yes­ter­day.

Cox spoke af­ter she con­tin­ued dis­cus­sions on Wednes­day with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on in­for­ma­tion shar­ing be­tween the min­istries.

Un­der the arrange­ment, the So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Min­istry (MS­DFS) will ac­cess the trav­el in­for­ma­tion of so­cial wel­fare grant re­cip­i­ents.

The meet­ing con­tin­ued fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions on arrange­ments to share trav­el in­for­ma­tion from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to So­cial De­vel­op­ment con­cern­ing cit­i­zens and res­i­dents of T&T ap­ply­ing for the Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sion and oth­er so­cial as­sis­tance grants of­fered by the min­istry - the Pub­lic As­sis­tance Grant, Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grant and the Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grant for Mi­nors.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, Cox was pre­sent­ed with a let­ter of au­tho­ri­sa­tion in­di­cat­ing that the min­istry is now an of­fi­cial re­cip­i­ent of im­mi­gra­tion da­ta.

The So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry an­tic­i­pates that when im­ple­ment­ed, the new arrange­ment will elim­i­nate “a myr­i­ad of chal­lenges re­lat­ed to dual cit­i­zen­ship and trav­el pat­terns, as well as gar­ner re­al-time re­spons­es, there­by re­duc­ing the wait time for grant ap­pli­ca­tions.”

Cox ex­plained, “This sys­tem will al­low shar­ing of re­al-time in­for­ma­tion with re­gard to peo­ple liv­ing abroad and who are ac­cess­ing grants and pen­sions. What is hap­pen­ing is there are many peo­ple who shouldn’t be in re­ceipt of se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sions - though they are- and they’re liv­ing abroad. But there is a le­gal stip­u­la­tion that re­cip­i­ents must be res­i­dents in T&T for a num­ber of years. This sys­tem is to pick up on who are liv­ing abroad and ac­cess­ing grants and pen­sions fraud­u­lent­ly.”

The sys­tem will start af­ter the fi­nal meet­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in two weeks. Cox said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry is work­ing out all the in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy lo­gis­tics.

The meet­ing al­so fo­cused on the com­mence­ment and re­ceipt of da­ta, the in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy in­fra­struc­ture need­ed for a se­cure and cer­ti­fied plat­form for da­ta ex­change, as well as the oth­er in­for­ma­tion nec­es­sary to fa­cil­i­tate the seam­less trans­mis­sion of trav­el in­for­ma­tion.

The min­istry is now look­ing for­ward to ad­vanc­ing dis­cus­sions to­wards the fi­nal­i­sa­tion of the MoU that will al­low for eas­i­er ac­cess to re­al-time, ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion.