St Kitts and Nevis govt opens registration for Poverty Alleviation program

St Kitts and Nevis: The government of St Kitts and Nevis announced the opening of the re-registration process of the Poverty Alleviation Program (PAP). Deputy Prime Minister and Minister with responsibility for Social Development- Geoffrey Hanley invited the people to fill out the application for the program via the online form at pap.gov.kn. 

During his address to the nation on Sunday, Geoffrey Hanley stated, “The Registration process has opened to all present eligible payees and any person who had not yet applied for or received a PAP benefit, but their household fits the eligibility criteria.” 

The Department of Community Development and Social Services will host a Poverty Alleviation Program (PAP) Community Registration drive from (Monday, November 28th).

Deputy PM stated that the applications for the Poverty Alleviation Program (PAP) could be made via the online application form at pap.gov.kn. 

Geoffrey Hanley stated, “The monetary value for each was three million four hundred and eighty thousand dollars, payable to 6960 regular PAP beneficiaries and 254500 dollars to PAP as expanded for covid 509 beneficiaries. This totaled a great payout of 3734500 dollars.”

He also outlined three reasons behind the alarming situation of these figures. 

• Firstly, according to the 2011 National Census, St Kitts and Nevis have a grand total of 17,291 households: which is divided between St Kitts with 13,078 and Nevis with 4,213. As per the beneficiary total, the results of the PAP would infer that 43% of the households in the country earn less than $3,000 per month.
• Secondly, the annual budgetary allocation for the PAP is thirty-two million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Till, July 31st, 2022, the program had spent 26,121,500 dollars.
• Thirdly, there is a public outcry that not all eligible households are being serviced by this PAP instead of the number of payees.

The Community Registration process is to assist persons with completing the online application at specific sites. Hence, persons who are not comfortable with technology, have limited to no internet connectivity and no device to register can visit the registration sites.

The schedules for the next three weeks are provided. Geoffrey Hanley asked the people to note that the Victoria Road Office remains available from 9 am to 6 pm each working day.

The Ministry of Social Development and Gender Affairs announced that they are aware of the challenges with the PAP online application form being experienced. All issues have been reported to the IT Department.

They will be taking the site offline for a period of time this morning to address the issues. They will provide regular updates via this page.