54,000 WELFARE RECIPIENTS

IN THE COUNTRY PAID BENEFITS

About 54,000 Social Welfare recipients have been paid their allowance since Wednesday.

Director Social Welfare Rupeni Fatiaki said the payments were disbursed on time.

He said about 10,000 recipients were yet to receive their allowance because they had not recertified. “Those who did not receive their allowance should visit the nearest social welfare office to fill in the recertification form and activate their allowance,” Mr Fatiaki said. “A grace period has been given until October. Come November payments will close. If they go and check and there is no funds in their accounts then they need to go to the social welfare office to check because most probably they have not recertified,” Mr Fatiaki said.

He said his team had exhausted all community outreach avenues and had done so extensively from January to July.

“We used all the media, Turaga ni Koro, advisory councils and the Bose ni Yasana’s but surprisingly the ones that are rushing to our offices now are the ones around the town areas.” He said their biggest worry were recipients in the maritime and rural areas, however more than 90 per cent of them have recertified. “They were the ones that we thought were going to be a challenge but these are the ones who have sent their forms in. It’s the ones in the town areas that’s taking their time so when we started holding the funds they started running and they said they didn’t hear about it in the media.”

Mr Fatiaki said the final list of recipients will be compiled once the ministry completes the whole recertification process in October. “Out of the total number of 75,712 recipients come the end of October then we will know who has not recertified and who has,” he said by

Selita

Bolanavanua