The local currency 'Grama' created at the end of 2016 to inject financial aid to users of social services in Santa Coloma de Gramenet (Barcelonès Nord), due to an administrative dysfunction, has temporarily stopped working, which has caused complaints of users, accustomed to purchasing basic necessities at participating establishments with their social card loaded with Gramas. The municipal government assures that at the beginning of December the program will be operational again and that users have not been left unattended.
As explained by the first deputy mayor of the Santa Coloma de Gramenet City Council, Esteve Serrano, the problem lies in the fact that the subsidy received to operate the social currency system was exhausted last August, while another was being processed in July. coming from the European Next Generation Funds of 1.2 million euros, which allowed 11 professionals to be hired to manage social benefits from the Department of Commerce and thus speed up payments of social benefits, from grams to euros.
Due to several delays in processing, the social currency service has ceased to be operational since mid-September, so some 200 families receiving social aid have not received aid in Gramas. According to Serrano, the service “at the beginning of December will be fully operational again” so those recipients of social aid who took advantage of the card for the immediacy in purchasing food, hygiene and basic necessities, but also to guarantee anonymity, They have not received the expected income.
“The social users of the Grama have already been notified that they had other lines of food aid at their disposal” such as social vouchers, the food delivery service, the food bank or the soup kitchen, points out the Councilor for Commerce. “No vulnerable person has been left without being attended to,” says Serrano.
Grama users have been surprised by the lack of liquidity on their cards since last summer and have complained about the information received from Social Services. On the other hand, the disagreement about some of the participating businesses is coincidental, which, as one user explains, “are the most expensive in the city.”
A discontent that contrasts with the satisfaction survey carried out on people who receive this aid through the Grama and rate their satisfaction with the benefit with a 9.5. Regarding satisfaction with the variety of products that can be chosen with the social card, 47% of users are happy and 33% are very satisfied. 88% affirm that they do not prefer another system to qualify for aid.
Regarding the degree of satisfaction of the businesses that have joined the Pro-Grama campaign, 96% are satisfied with the simplicity of the collections and 100% with the collection process. Regarding the products offered, only 32% of establishments have included a low-cost category in their products. In summary, 40% of stores that use grass as a means of payment rate it with the maximum score of 10.
