The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices has apol­o­gised for a mix-up in the val­ue of tem­po­rary Food Sup­port cards be­ing dis­trib­uted for Christ­mas say­ing they are ac­tu­al­ly val­ued at $550 and not $250.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day the min­istry ex­plained that dur­ing prepa­ra­tion, let­ters to ben­e­fi­cia­ries in­di­cat­ing that the amount on the Food Sup­port card is $250 was in­ad­ver­tent­ly en­closed in some of the en­velopes.

It said, “ The min­istry sin­cere­ly apol­o­gis­es for the in­con­ve­nience caused and as­sures re­cip­i­ents that all cards have an avail­able val­ue of $550, which may be con­firmed at the point of en­cash­ment. Su­per­mar­kets via the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go have al­so been no­ti­fied about this sit­u­a­tion.”

The min­istry said as is cus­tom­ary, cards were dis­trib­uted to de­serv­ing house­holds via the 41 Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, in an ef­fort to en­sure that vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies who are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing hard­ship and are un­able to ful­ly pro­vide for the nu­tri­tion­al needs of their re­spec­tive fam­i­lies are pro­vid­ed with the nec­es­sary sup­port dur­ing the yule­tide sea­son.

Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment are re­spon­si­ble for dis­trib­ut­ing the Christ­mas Food cards to those in need with­in their com­mu­ni­ties and these cards will be valid un­til Jan­u­ary 31, 2021.