Thou­sands of vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing se­nior pen­sion­ers and re­cip­i­ents of Food Sup­port and Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance, will face a de­lay in re­ceiv­ing their month­ly so­cial wel­fare cheques for Oc­to­ber, due to what of­fi­cials are call­ing “un­fore­seen tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties” with the Gov­ern­ment’s cheque-print­ing process.

In an ur­gent pub­lic no­tice is­sued yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices con­firmed the dis­rup­tion, adding that “all ef­forts are un­der­way” to re­solve the is­sue as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

The set­back af­fects re­cip­i­ents who still re­ly on phys­i­cal cheques for es­sen­tial grants, such as the Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sion, Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grants, Pub­lic As­sis­tance Grants, and Food Sup­port.