Senators question purchasing power of $250 social grant increase

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer so­cial de­vel­op­ment min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs are both ques­tion­ing the true ben­e­fits of the pro­posed in­creas­es in grants un­der the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.

Dur­ing his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo an­nounced a $250 per month in­crease in the Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Grant, Pub­lic As­sis­tance Grant and Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grant, at an ad­di­tion­al an­nu­al cost of $555 mil­lion.

How­ev­er, the min­istry re­ceived ap­prox­i­mate­ly $812 mil­lion less for so­cial as­sis­tance pro­grammes over­all.