Skelton Cline blasts strict rules for social grants
Honestly Speaking host Claude Skelton Cline has urged staff within the Social Development Department to speak out against what he describes as unnecessarily stringent rules that continue to burden seniors who rely on government grants to meet their daily needs.
On his radio show this week, Skelton Cline said too many elderly residents are being subjected to invasive checks and requirements that go far beyond what is reasonable for small monthly stipends.
“I am particularly concerned about our senior citizen population, and some of the things that we are putting them through to receive basic assistance,” he said. “This is the result of one of the recommendations of the COI … in the name of what is supposed to be accountability and transparency, but it is not working for our seniors.”
Skelton Cline pointed to intake forms that require applicants to disclose details such as bank account balances, debt information, and medical reports.
“My God, this is what they are having to complete just to get $200 or $250 a month,” he said, adding that one 96-year-old resident was recently subjected to questions that he described as “immoral.”
Blow the trumpet
Skelton Cline urged Social Development Department staff to resist staying silent and instead raise their voices about what is happening.
“Blow the trumpet, those of you who are in Social Services,” he said. “You cannot be afraid to blow the trumpet. Most of you in there don’t agree with what’s happening. Stop hiding under the civil service bushel where they have you silent and nothing can be corrected because you are afraid of backlash.”
He called on all 13 elected members of the House of Assembly to unite on amending the system, ensuring that seniors are treated with dignity.
“Our senior citizens … should be handled more gently and gingerly,” Skelton Cline added.
“This is not the time to be intimidated by anything or anyone. Blow the trumpet or tell me so I can help you tell the story,” he said.
Skelton Cline’s rebuke comes amid calls by several legislators who have voiced concern that elderly residents are being forced to jump through too many bureaucratic hoops to access assistance of just a few hundred dollars a month.
Some have described the process as demeaning for men and women who have already “worked, laboured and toiled” for the territory.
The reportedly tedious process now in place for social grants was introduced in the wake of the 2022 Commission of Inquiry (COI), which directed that social assistance grants be removed from direct ministerial control and placed under the Social Development Department to ensure transparency and accountability.
While the move was intended to reduce political favouritism in the distribution of funds, critics say it has created new hardships for seniors, who must now provide extensive documentation before they can qualify for even basic support.
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Is your uncle who tell the governor to do that. So shut up
Do it how?
All elected thirteen members of the house are concerned primarily and foremost with their own pockets, getting rich and living comfortably at the expense of the people’s purse.
Until the next election cycle is approaching, they have no use for or care not about the people who are in need.
For example, to the same speed and degree that they put together and passed that piece of legislation granting them excessive amounts of monies, named the Greedy Bill, to the same extent, if they wanted to and cared enough, they could have put together a package to take care of seniors needs and ensure their viability in old age.
But no, that is not their concern. Seniors and retirees are in dire need, and many are to ashamed to ask for help, while others have spent an entire career building this nation only to witness individuals reap and suck off of the gravy they helped produced.
Some thing must be done and soon. Pensioners and seniors should not be suffering to the extent they are while a few men and women are living high and mighty off the hog!!!
It is shameful and obhorent the way the are treating that segment of the population.
I guess it would be like the burden of having to write a report for tou $350,000.
Maybe people should show they don’t have a $Million in the bank before being given $250 a week of the VI peoples money.
Maybe they should show they have an illness before they get $250 help with it.
You have a problem with records and accountability.
We can’t just keep giving you and others $350,000 over adn over for no reason.
The COI saw that. We still await your prosecution.
I just have to laugh because it seems lately we have political amnesia. Why are we pretending that most of these new regulations/requirements were not put in place under the UNITY GOVERNMENT where Sowande/Kye/Marlon/Mitch etc. held Ministerial positions and were part of Cabinet? Hon. Marlon Penn was the Minister of Health at the time and Mitch and others lauded the changes. They were even happy to give up their district allocations and now here pretending as if the UK or someone else did them something. Our people are power hungry cowards and we are just as bad to support most of them.
“Skelton Cline pointed to intake forms that require applicants to disclose details such as bank account balances, debt information, and medical reports.”
If you’re seeking funds from the public fisc (a/k/a welfare), be prepared to demonstrate that you’re entitled to it. You’re asking for money that is confiscated from taxpayers, individual or corporate, so quit complaining.
Having said that, it would not surprise me in the least if this government has a horribly inefficient, redundant, and wasteful process for applying – mirroring everything else that this government does (except for things like a transaction that dumped $5M into a failing bank).
Badminded , hardhearted people structured the form
If you have 500 .00 the minimum in your bank account they say you are not qualified
You have to live paycheck from paycheck to be eligible
If you are sick or have an emergency you must not have a little savings to bale you out.
What kind of Board is this ?
They look at your last name and determine who gets what
They pretend they do not see names . Set a evil
People on the Board
If you are a Belonger with not the typical BVI name as an elderly , your goose cook
TO RUN THIS COUNTRY ALONG WITH – CLAUDIE – VINNIE – THE 2 WANNABE HOLY BOYZ FROM CGB AND WITH THE CARTELZ IN THE SHADOWS WE CAN SEEK INDEPENDENCE AND LET THE “WHITE LADY FLOW THROUGH FREELY AND THERE WILL BE LOTS OF MONEY TO GO AROUND FOR EVERYBODY • CASE CLOSED
Tell that 2% Bvilanderwhen he put back our un accounted monies back in the treasury then he can give this memo!
Which gives the 100% born here Walwin to not sign off on his governmentcontract!
SOO,Old folks, must “show”, entitlement, for two hundred, and, fifty dollars, USD?
REALLY?
And, this paltry sum, could do anything for the elderly, in these hard, economic, times?
The Social Development Department, should be, ASHAMED. OF. THEMSELVES!!