More than $1 million of ChooseCBR vouchers have been redeemed, with almost $800,000 spent in a matter of hours since the trouble-plagued scheme relaunched on Friday morning.
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The ACT government has allocated $2 million to the vouchers, and if current spending patterns continue the scheme would be finished this weekend. As of 6.45pm, it was at $1.46 million.
The scheme restarted on Friday for the third time after being closed for more than a week after the ACT government pulled the website following a series of technical issues.
Canberrans can use up to $80 in vouchers - made up of a $50, $20 and $10 voucher - each day as part of the scheme, provided they are not used in the same transaction.
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It comes after reports of long lines of customers outside eligible businesses that are part of the scheme.
The Canberra Times has been told some businesses such as the Chemist Warehouse in Belconnen, which was participating in ChooseCBR, was restricting the amount of customers that were able to enter the store due to large crowds.
Close to 800 businesses across the ACT had signed up to the scheme before it was taken down last week.
Among them were multinational fast-food chains including the McDonald's in Manuka, along with several Subway and Zambrero stores.
Businesses will have to select whether they will continue to take part in the scheme following its resumption.
The ACT government has spent much of the past week testing the ChooseCBR website to see if it could handle large amounts of traffic.
The website crashed during the scheme's second launch last week due to the demand for people redeeming the vouchers.
However, an ACT government spokeswoman said the site could now handle large volumes of users.
"Testing has shown the system is now performing well in a simulated environment of 600 voucher redemptions per minute, while allowing significant numbers of customer registrations to occur at the same time," the spokeswoman said.
Questions were also raised as to whether the vouchers were being misused, but an inbuilt audit process found no evidence of it taking place.
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Andrew Brown
I've been part of the Canberra Times since 2016, after reporting at local papers in Sydney's north-west. Since starting at the paper I've had stints on the Sunday Times, on the early morning breaking news round, and now as a general reporter, covering the ins and outs of anything and everything happening in Canberra, with a focus on health.
I've been part of the Canberra Times since 2016, after reporting at local papers in Sydney's north-west. Since starting at the paper I've had stints on the Sunday Times, on the early morning breaking news round, and now as a general reporter, covering the ins and outs of anything and everything happening in Canberra, with a focus on health.
