Changes next year to the Food Card pro­gramme will be sup­ple­ment­ed by a re­vival of the Food Box pro­gramme.

It will in­volve mov­ing away from just mon­ey, to a com­bi­na­tion of mon­ey plus fresh pro­duce and meat—but if some­one is get­ting a $700 Food Card now and in 2023 they get $500 in a Food Box, then they would not qual­i­fy for a $700 Food Card as well.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert in­di­cat­ed the up­com­ing changes in yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee’s ex­am­i­na­tion of the Bud­get.

The SFC in­volves Op­po­si­tion MPs’ scruti­ny of Bud­get doc­u­ment items and ques­tion­ing Gov­ern­ment on them.

Ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the Food Sup­port pro­gramme were be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed in Jan­u­ary by the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry. The Food Box pro­gramme -in­volv­ing fresh pro­duce and meat - was done dur­ing the height of the COVID-19 lock­down to as­sist peo­ple. It was halt­ed as eco­nom­ic re­open­ing be­gan.

Yes­ter­day Op­po­si­tion MP Dave Tan­coo had queried what prompt­ed an $8 mil­lion de­crease in al­lo­ca­tion for the Food Price Sup­port pro­gramme in 2023. Im­bert said,” We in­tend to sup­port more peo­ple.”

Pressed on how this would be done, Im­bert said, “What we in­tend to do in 2023 is to restart the Food Box pro­gramme and we’ll sup­ple­ment the Food Card pro­gramme with the Food Box pro­gramme.”

Tan­coo queried where ex­act­ly the $8 mil­lion de­crease was be­ing done and where less would be spent in 2023.

Im­bert ex­plained, “If some­one is get­ting a $700 Food Card now and in 2023 they get $500 in a Food Box then they would not qual­i­fy for a $700 food card as well.”

On Tan­coo’s fur­ther con­cerns, Im­bert in­sist­ed peo­ple will “Get more food not less be­cause there’s an­oth­er item where they will get more - so the ag­gre­gate is more. Not less.

“We are help­ing more peo­ple as we have an­oth­er pro­gramme which will sup­ple­ment this mat­ter,” Im­bert in­sist­ed.

Tan­coo point­ed out Im­bert had said he in­tend­ed to re­duce the amount of val­ue in Food Cards, to which Im­bert stressed, “And in­crease the amount in Food Box­es.”

Ch­agua­nas East MP Van­dana Mo­hit al­so sought clar­i­ty on the changes. Im­bert said, “The peo­ple who are on the (Food Card) pro­gramme at present will con­tin­ue to get their full ben­e­fits.”

He said there’s more than enough to car­ry the ex­ist­ing group of ben­e­fi­cia­ries in the Food Sup­port pro­gramme for the next 11 months or so.

Im­bert con­tin­ued, “Dur­ing that pe­ri­od there’s go­ing to be a re­vival of the Food Box pro­gramme and an ef­fort will be made to mi­grate peo­ple away from just a card to a sit­u­a­tion where we can stim­u­late agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion.

“The farm­ers will get some in­come be­cause they’ll be pro­vid­ing the pro­duce and meat to Namde­v­co to dis­trib­ute it to the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry.

“It’s a pro­gramme in tran­si­tion as the de­tails aren’t com­plete­ly avail­able at this point but over the next cou­ple months, you’ll get more in­for­ma­tion,”

On whether it’s a grad­u­a­tion out of the Food Card pro­gramme and peo­ple won’t be re­moved from the pro­gramme, Im­bert said, “Those ques­tions are bet­ter di­rect­ed to the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter. There are is­sues with the Food Card pro­gramme, it’s not sup­posed to be per­ma­nent. Peo­ple are sup­posed to tran­si­tion out of it.”

On the new Food Card/Box ap­proach, Im­bert said, “This is a change in the type of sup­port. It will move away from just mon­ey, to a com­bi­na­tion of mon­ey by way of a card and ac­tu­al fresh pro­duce and meats,”

Mean­while, Im­bert said the cut-off for the COVID-19 Salary Re­lief/oth­er grants was 2021 and on­ly a back­log of SR grants were be­ing done. He rep­ri­mand­ed Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram for “po­lit­i­cal mis­chief “- try­ing to cre­ate “un­re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tions” for grants—af­ter the econ­o­my re­opened.