St Kitts-Nevis: Around 4,000 households benefit from poverty alleviation programme last year

(Press Release) The Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP) of the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis has had a positive socio-economic impact on households across St. Kitts and Nevis earning less than $3,000 per month.

The PAP provides a stipend of $500 monthly to households whose gross monthly income is less than $3,000. Persons are strongly encouraged to use the funds to support necessities such as purchasing food, paying rent/ mortgage, paying bills, buying essential supplies etc.

At his monthly press conference on Tuesday (July 02, 2019) held at Government Headquarters, Prime Minister Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris, reported that $13.6 million has been paid to qualifying individuals since the programme was initiated in December 2018.

“For June, 3,372 beneficiaries received direct deposits to their bank accounts ... and 556 received cheques,” Dr. Harris stated, citing figures for last month.

The 3,928 total however is not complete given that there are some persons who had not collected last month’s cheques when the report was compiled.

The prime minister expressed deepest appreciation to: “Gaile Phillip, Senior Director of Statistics in the Ministry of Sustainable Development and her team; Permanent Secretary Janelle Lewis-Tafari of the Ministry of Social Development and Gender Affairs and her team; Levi Bradshaw, our Accountant General and his team for this spectacular effort in implementing a new programme positively impacting the lives of nearly 4,000 persons on the island of St. Kitts and on the island of Nevis … and this has been going on without any major glitches.”

The next PAP payment will be made on Wednesday, July 24, 2019