More people will be removed from the free bus fare initiative in 2024, says Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Lynda Tabuya.
While highlighting the ministry’s achievement for 2023, Ms Tabuya said they would now only top up the monthly amount normally used by the recipient to lessen the abuse of e-ticketing cards by family members.
The Bus Fare Assistance program, through electronic ticketing, was first implemented in 2017 to assist students from low income earning families to attend school, and to allow the elderly and the disabled to travel.
“The other issue that we’ve gone through this year is the bus fare scheme, we’ve now converted it to user base only because of the abuse of the accumulation of funds in our recipients top-up cards as it’s been used by family members,” Ms Tabuya said.
“It’s not being used by those who are supposed to, so in order to prevent abuse, we are only going to top up what is used.”
She said the ministry had received several complaints from recipients who had been moved out of the program.
She said those removed “have been in the program for many years”.
“When we have any change, there is always going to be possible discrepancies in the system, so we’ve seen this in terms of those that are in our system that we are now trying to graduate out of the program.
“We’ve had some upset recipients who we are also removing out of the program.
“So, one of our changes this year is to ensure that there is an expiry date for our people on the poverty benefit scheme because really, the poverty benefit scheme provided by Government is only there to absorb temporary shocks.
“Like the loss of jobs, the COVID pandemic but once you secure a job you should be out of the system. “So that is what we’re working on to clean our system.”
Last November, Ms Tabuya said, more than 50 per cent of recipients on the bus fare subsidy scheme had been accumulating funds in their e-cards.
She said when the bus fare program started in 2011, there were 22,000 recipients and this grew to about 42,000 as of August 2023.
She clarified the initial monthly top-up ranged from $40 at the commencement, and later decreased to $20, then $10 during COVID — and later restored to $25.
Ms Tabuya added they would also be looking towards improving access to benefits for recipients while at the same time reforming its welfare system by setting expiration dates for recipients this year.
About 90,000 people on social welfare directly benefit from increased monthly allowances of 15 and 25 per cent effective from August 2023.
The funding allocation for the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Protection in the 2023-2024 National Budget had increased from $147.7 million to $200.2 million, a major increase of $52.5 million.
Those aged 70 and above and are on the social pension system received a 25 per cent increase.
The social pension scheme was allocated a large budget of $78.2m, an increase of $23.2m to cater for the needs of 54,200 senior citizens.
Those between the age of 65 to 69 had monthly allowances increased from $100 to $115.
