By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

A DISGRUNTLED department store owner yesterday accused the government of “discrimination” for allegedly excluding his store from the list of shops to be recognised by the new Social Services pre-paid debit card.

The store owner, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, blamed the Department of Social Services for costing his business over $60,000 in back-to-school sales, which he claimed was due to the new pre-paid card being restricted for use in just three stores, his excluded.

The store owner also alleged that other department store owners had experienced similar losses due to the restrictions, but were unwilling to speak up about it.

Social Services Minister Melanie Griffin, when contacted yesterday, denied the allegations, stating that the implementation of the prepaid card “allows any store with a point of sale or that accepts Visa cards to be able to use it”.

She admitted that two stores have experienced problems with the “restrictive codes” placed on the cards, but said those issues have since been resolved by the department. Mrs Griffin also stated that she had no part to play in the selection process of the various stores.

According to the store owner, the issue arose at the start of last month, when his credit card reader refused to accept the pre-paid cards of a number of patrons seeking to make back-to-school purchases at his store.

Becoming “suspicious”, he claimed he subsequently questioned a number of the patrons on the issue, who allegedly told him that the card only allows for them to shop at three stores: Sandy’s, John’s and Melissa Sears.

As a result, he claimed that his store lost $60,000 to $70,000 in sales, the worst he said in his 32 years in the business.

“In this day and age with the technology we have, something like this is not called for,” the store owner said.

“It’s so many ways you can go about doing it without discriminating against everybody else,” he said. “They could have called a meeting with all the business people, and let them know what they’re going to do and so on. But it’s absolutely nothing said to nobody.

“I really took a pounding this year. I probably lost about $60,000-$70,000 in sales. I’m very disgruntled about it.”

When contacted yesterday however, Mrs Griffin said there was no discrimination from her ministry.

“The new card has actually expanded the use because before, we were using purchase orders which were only used at a very narrow group of stores,” she said.

“But just like with the food assistance programme, the implementation of the pre-paid card allows any store with a point of sale or that accepts Visa cards to be able to use it. So I don’t understand how it would be any more restrictive than what it is. In fact it would be less restrictive than what was happening before.

“I understand that the cards initially did not work at two stores, and once it was discovered it was corrected. So there’s nothing that prevents persons from going to those stores and using those cards there.”

She added: “The next thing is, and any of the food vendors would tell you, once the client has a choice, we have no control over where they choose to shop. Now before, because we were restricted by purchase orders with the uniforms, only specific stores accepted. But the card now gives the client to right to chose where they wish to shop. So if they chose not to shop somewhere, we have no control over that.

“Just for the record, I have nothing to do with selecting who the merchants are. The process is that persons who wish to provide the service would submit their letters of application to the department and due process or due diligence would be done by the (department) to ensure that they are able to provide the services that they are seeking to provide.”

In November, officials introduced the new debit card in conjunction with the Bank of the Bahamas (BOB).

It is designed to curb abuse of the food coupon system, and is seen as a key reform to how the government distributes aid to poor Bahamians.

Mrs Griffin said last year that the card was one feature of wide-ranging upgrades to The Bahamas’ social safety net, a programme being financed with $7.5m from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).