Dozens of To­ba­go pen­sion­ers who had their pen­sion cheques stolen in Feb­ru­ary this year, have re­ceived their pen­sions.

Con­fir­ma­tion has come from the Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Sen­a­tor Don­na Cox, who ad­mit­ted to be­ing hap­py that the in­ci­dent was re­solved, as promised.

“I am pleased to re­port that at the end of Oc­to­ber, the 43 vic­tims of pen­sion theft in To­ba­go have re­ceived their pen­sions.” said the Min­is­ter in an of­fi­cial state­ment.

In Feb­ru­ary, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Ser­vice re­port­ed the theft of 43 pen­sion cheques in To­ba­go that were cashed in Trinidad. Min­is­ter Cox, who in­di­cat­ed that she was made aware of the mat­ter dur­ing a cour­tesy call paid to the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment in Sep­tem­ber, en­cour­aged per­sons to sign up for the Min­istry’s Di­rect De­posit Sys­tem.

“The Di­rect De­posit Sys­tem will ad­dress the myr­i­ad of chal­lenges en­coun­tered by clients com­plain­ing of lost, stolen or dam­aged cheques,” Min­is­ter Cox as­sured. “It is a safe and re­li­able sys­tem and will en­hance the de­liv­ery of so­cial ser­vices pro­vid­ed to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

The Di­rect De­posit is a ser­vice where­by cheques are de­posit­ed di­rect­ly in­to the bank ac­counts of clients. It is an Au­to­mat­ed Clear­ing House (ACH) trans­ac­tion that is a safe, proven, con­fi­den­tial method of re­ceiv­ing a pay­ment.

The So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry is en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to call the Min­istry’s hot­line num­ber at 800-1MSD (800–1673) or vis­it a So­cial Wel­fare Of­fice in their re­gion, for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on this ini­tia­tive.

In­for­ma­tion al­so can be sought on­line at the Min­istry’s web­site, at www.so­cial.gov.tt