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A food voucher system that widens Fiji’s social welfare net will come into effect at March end, the Ministry of Social Welfare and Women has announced.
The ministry’s acting permanent secretary Govind Sami said recipients will receive food vouchers of $30 per month from a $7.4 million allocation in the 2010 Budget.
The voucher program will be in addition to the existing monthly family assistance payments ranging between $60 and $100.
The voucher program is targeted at the chronically ill, elderly and permanently disabled. Children under kinship care and those receiving care and protection allowances will also qualify.
Voucher books are being prepared and should be ready for distribution by the last week of March.
Each voucher will only be valid for a period of 60 days and recipients will be able to able to get food items from an approved list at the Morris Hedstrom and New World supermarkets.
The contracts with the two supermarkets will only be valid up until June 30, 2010, Sami said, because the ministry will be seeking more inputs by vendors for a more innovative program “which can further stretch the dollar for the most needy in the society”.
