Three payment methods have been considered by the Social Welfare Department to pay Social Pension Scheme recipients.

Director Social Welfare, Rupeni Fatiaki says the three methods include voucher, bank payment, and cash payments.

Fatiaki says the places where recipients live will determine the payment methods they use.

He adds they will only consider cash payments in worse situations.

“In some situations, where we have to send our officers to do cash payments, where there is no post office and the postal agencies have been closed. So we send our officers with cash to pay the recipients cash wherever they are register in.”

Most recipients prefer voucher payment because it’s easy compared to bank payments.

There are about 70,000 recipients under the Social Pension Scheme.