Six working days since the Financial Assistance Anonymous Hotline was set up to report the abuse there have been 15 calls reporting information that was 75 percent “true”.

The new hotline was announced by Wayne Scott, the Minister of Community, Culture and Sports, at a press conference last week after Government dished out an unprecedented $36 million financial assistance between January and October 2013.

According to Dianna Taylor, the Director of the Department of Financial Assistance, the other calls cited “general comments from the public expressing what they feel clients should not have access to, such as cable television, cars, etc”.

And while one or two calls are coming in daily, she stressed the issue of fraud and or abuse is nothing new.

“I think this is an excellent start; we note one to two calls daily thus far and have investigated all to date,” she said.

“We can estimate at least four calls weekly over the last ten years of serious fraud violations in the areas of: rent violations; changes with unreported income; unreported employment; additional persons in properties; unreported travel; misappropriation of financial awards and fraudulent job search submissions; and asset violations.”

There were also reports of clients “buying food and selling it, somebody took a trip or two or this person is living with this person and those kinds of things”.

“In terms of reporting this is nothing new. This is something that’s been going on since the inception of financial assistance. People will report people who they suspect of abuse,” she said.

“This hotline is our attempt to formally make it a formal process. It will also help us in terms of establishing benchmarks going forward in terms of how many people are calling too.”

And there’s one case she will always remember.

“The worse one for me, it was later discovered after a person was in a nursing facility that the family had sold her property. They inherited over $2m and that was not reported to us.

“That was one of the worst ones because you’re expecting Government to pay a facility for somebody but money was inherited and the family split the money. The person is still living — that was about three years ago.”

The Minister added: “There’s another case of a client who has taken three trips already this year and this is only January 16 and they’re unemployed.

“By the time we get to the end of this fiscal year we’ll probably be at $47m to $48m that this Government will spend in support. Even if the rate of abuse is just ten percent or as low as one percent that’s millions,” he said.

“The point is we want to provide help and the more responsibly we spend assistance dollars, the more help we can provide to those who need it. And our ultimate goal is to help our people but the best financial assistance is a job.

“The primary objective is to help our people and that’s first and foremost. And you can’t provide help that you can’t identify.

“I would say also that on a very frequent basis I am getting calls, the department is getting calls, people are stopping us on the street, the general vibe I hear in the community, especially with the hard times is ‘we’re struggling out here, why are these people getting these things’.”

While reiterating “the face of financial assistance has changed” he said at least 50 percent of the clients today “are able bodied working people as opposed to 30 percent before”.

“A lot of these people have worked hard all of their lives so we’re actually cognisant of that,” he said.

“Part of their remit in Financial Assistance is to make sure people are compliant — they’ve always done that.

“I can say that within 24 hours of this hotline being announced there was qualifiable information that was sent.

“One of the criticisms that we’ve heard is this is just going to be a very malicious process.”

But he said: “What’s more malicious is to have a situation where people are hurting, to have a situation where you do have some dysfunctional people and you’re not providing help. I would think that’s more malicious, that’s more egregious.

“As an example, if you have someone that is abusing substances we can offer help — that would be the ultimate goal. There are some who will choose not to have help, there are some who are content and that is their choice. But that should not be supported by the taxpayer.

“There are suspensions that are built into the system for abuse that have always been there. But to do nothing is worse.”

The anonymous hotline number is 297-STOP (7867).