The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices has spent a stag­ger­ing $358 mil­lion to as­sist cit­i­zens af­fect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in the last two years.

Pro­vid­ing the fig­ure was So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Min­is­ter Don­na Cox who stat­ed that these tem­po­rary fi­nan­cial mea­sures have pro­vid­ed a ro­bust safe­ty net to many who were ei­ther re­trenched, ter­mi­nat­ed or ex­pe­ri­enced a re­duced in­come dur­ing the lock­down re­stric­tions in 2020 and 2021.

Even though Cox has de­liv­ered a num­ber of so­cial sup­port mech­a­nisms to cush­ion the reper­cus­sions of the lin­ger­ing virus, she be­lieves more can be done to help the vul­ner­a­ble in so­ci­ety and her min­istry can learn from its mis­takes.

In the last 22 months, Cox said her min­istry has pro­vid­ed thou­sands of T&T cit­i­zens with food, in­come sup­port and rental as­sis­tance grants to help them nav­i­gate through the coun­try’s most chal­leng­ing pe­ri­od.

Be­tween last and this year, Cox said her min­istry dis­bursed $358 mil­lion to al­most 185,000 T&T cit­i­zens af­fect­ed by the pan­dem­ic and lock­down mea­sures.

In phase one, she said the min­istry spent $347 mil­lion on 178,000 in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies in Trinidad who re­quired food, rental and in­come sup­port, while in the sec­ond phase a to­tal of 1,158 cit­i­zens ob­tained in­come sup­port val­ued at $3,021,535.

To­bag­o­ni­ans, Cox said, were al­so the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of COVID-19 re­lat­ed re­lief.

As of De­cem­ber 4 last year, she said 1,842 To­bag­o­ni­ans re­ceived food sup­port grants val­ued at $2,818,260. Her min­istry al­so paid out $5,290,500 to 1,749 in­come sup­port ap­pli­cants.

In ad­di­tion, 1,644 res­i­dents in To­ba­go re­ceived both in­come and food sup­port.

To­ba­go’s ex­pen­di­ture ac­count­ed for $8,108,760 of the $358 mil­lion hand­ed out so far.

Cox - Min­istry pro­vides coun­selling, pre­dicts more may need as­sis­tance

In ad­di­tion to bring­ing re­lief to those af­fect­ed by the pan­dem­ic, Cox said tele­phone and vir­tu­al coun­selling were pro­vid­ed to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3,000 in­di­vid­u­als through the min­istry’s Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices de­part­ment.

“Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, it be­came crit­i­cal for us to en­sure that the vul­ner­a­ble was sup­port­ed through the ac­tiv­i­ties of a more ro­bust safe­ty net. The min­istry de­liv­ered a num­ber of so­cial sup­port mea­sures to cush­ion the reper­cus­sions of the lock­down mea­sures, giv­en the num­ber of per­sons who were re­trenched, ter­mi­nat­ed or ex­pe­ri­enced a re­duced in­come,” Cox told Guardian Me­dia in re­sponse to ques­tions emailed to her.

“We know that many per­sons were on the bread­line fol­low­ing re­trench­ment and ter­mi­na­tion of jobs, which posed fi­nan­cial and men­tal duress for many. Nonethe­less, the min­istry was able to re­spond as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, to en­sure that the im­pacts were not too se­vere. We all agree that this was, and still is, an un­prece­dent­ed time and as a coun­try, we, there­fore, need to pull to­geth­er at all lev­els.”

Ad­mit­ting her min­istry was the first to re­spond with an ar­ray of so­cial sup­port ini­tia­tives to cush­ion the ef­fects of the Stay-at-Home re­stric­tions, Cox agreed that 2021 was in­deed chal­leng­ing but felt in go­ing for­ward her min­istry can learn from its mis­takes.

“There were many chal­lenges, but I am pleased to say that to date the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices has been able to pos­i­tive­ly re­spond to the ma­jor­i­ty of ap­pli­ca­tions for COVID-19 re­lat­ed re­lief. The var­i­ous mea­sures in­clud­ed food sup­port, and oth­er grants to as­sist those af­fect­ed. Can we learn from our mis­takes? Yes, we can! Will we con­tin­ue to press for­ward to en­sure that no one is left be­hind?”

As for what plans Cox has in place to nav­i­gate what is be­ing per­ceived as an even hard­er year ahead?

“The min­istry an­tic­i­pates that some fam­i­lies will be in greater need of as­sis­tance due to the im­pact of the down­turn and fur­ther com­pound­ed by COVID-19. Our fo­cus will be on em­pow­er­ing per­sons to re-in­vent them­selves and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life,” Cox stat­ed.

“We know that many per­sons were on the bread­line fol­low­ing re­trench­ment and ter­mi­na­tion of jobs, which posed fi­nan­cial and men­tal duress for many. Nonethe­less, the min­istry was able to re­spond as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, to en­sure that the im­pacts were not too se­vere. We all agree that this was, and still is, an un­prece­dent­ed time and as a coun­try, we, there­fore, need to pull to­geth­er at all lev­els.”

Cox said in an at­tempt to strength­en the state’s re­sponse to fu­ture emer­gency shocks and to al­low for bet­ter tar­get­ing to en­sure the re­lief reach­es those who are in most need, a com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis on the ef­fec­tive­ness of the COVID-19 re­lief mea­sures will be pur­sued in 2022.

“The find­ings of the re­search will guide and in­form the de­vel­op­ment of a min­istry-led cri­sis in­ter­ven­tion strat­e­gy and more im­por­tant­ly, will fa­cil­i­tate an ev­i­dence-based na­tion­al so­cial re­sponse to mit­i­gate the ef­fects of the cur­rent pan­dem­ic and oth­er such emer­gen­cies that may emerge in the fu­ture.”