Social Welfare system needs thorough review in the wake of reports of abuse and misuse
The Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Lynda Tabuya, has revealed that the ministry does not have a database system. She also discloses that there have been abuse and misuse of social welfare benefits.
This is shocking, unacceptable and criminal. How the ministry has been operating over the years without a proper recording system defies logic and imagination.
According to Ms Tabuya’s remarks, there are people receiving social welfare benefits they are not entitled to.
Some of them receive the benefits after the recipients who were family members, died. That’s fraud and it’s a crime punishable by law.
Usually, members of the family should report to the ministry with a death certificate that a family member receiving welfare assistance had died. If they don’t, then the ministry will keep paying the recipient through his bank account.
In several cases, if the recipient is immobile due to physical and psychological disabilities, the carers, which normally are family members, will do the errands for the recipient. These include going to withdraw money from the teller machines because they have access to the PIN numbers.
If there is no data base it’s practically impossible to know what’s going on in Social Welfare. This encourages abuse and misuse because the perpetrators know the capability of the ministry to detect if anything is wrong unless it receives complaints from the public.
Moving forward as part of the changes planned by Ms Tabuya, it’s crucial that the ministry should return to basics.
Fundamentally, there should be checks and balance at all levels of the ministry particularly when it comes to disbursement of funds to recipients. If officers in the ministry are doing their jobs, they would be regularly contacting the recipients or their careers/families at periodic intervals to check on their conditions, whether they are receiving their benefits and using them for the purpose they are intended for.
The contacts can be made by letters sent physically or online, phone calls or phone messages, and physical visits. All these measures combined will prevent abuse and misuse.
There should also be internal changes in the ministry to eliminate any possibility of fraud or collusion with recipients.
It is great to hear the Pacific Community would help the ministry digitise its data base.
The ministry is still conducting an internal investigation to find out the total number of people misusing social welfare assistance.
Ms Tabuya says the ministry is very vigilant and is conducting investigations on complaints received, and Fijians caught cheating the system will be dealt with by the law.
That’s a firm response from her and we hope that through this exercise the ministry will solve the abuse, misuse and wastage.
NEMANI DELAIBATIKI
Feedback: nemani.delaibatiki@fijisun.com.fj