The Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices has con­firmed the com­ple­tion of cheque print­ing and prepa­ra­tion for na­tion­wide dis­tri­b­u­tion fol­low­ing a tem­po­rary de­lay in the so­cial ser­vices pay­ment process.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry, cit­i­zens re­ceiv­ing pay­ments through di­rect de­posit were not af­fect­ed. The is­sue arose from a me­chan­i­cal fail­ure of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NIBTT) cheque-print­ing ma­chine.

The Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices was no­ti­fied of the sit­u­a­tion on Sep­tem­ber 24, and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance was in­formed the same day to fa­cil­i­tate im­me­di­ate ac­tion. A pub­lic ad­vi­so­ry was is­sued on 26th Sep­tem­ber.