July 10 final day for welfare applications

Social welfare recipients, who do not submit their recertification forms by Friday, July 10, 2020, will not receive any assistance in August.

Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Mereseini Vuniwaqa, said over the years they had found that people, who were not the legal beneficiaries, were receiving the money.

“This is to weed out those cases where the beneficiary has died and somebody else is still taking the money. This is the first time that we are doing it,” Ms Vuniwaqa said.

As of June 30, she said, only 70.6 per cent of the total beneficiaries had filled the form, and 15,000 beneficiaries had yet to.

The recertification process is for recipients of the poverty benefit scheme, care protection allowance for children and the pension scheme.

She said the ministry was working with village headmen and advisory counsellors to tell people of the process. Fonua Talei Edited by Ivamere Nataro