Sri Lanka’s targeted Aswesuma poverty alleviation program faces delay amid resistance

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By Editor_1
Children are going to bed hungry, unsure of where their next meal will come from -Natalia Davidovich / Shutterstock.com
By Shihar Aneez
COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s ambitious poverty alleviation program Aswesuma is facing a delay due to resistance from bureaucrats at the grassroots level, multiple sources said.

The new program is aimed at providing funds directly to the poor and vulnerable people who are hit hard by the unprecedented economic crisis.

Sri Lanka has already secured US$ 185 million World Bank funding to support the welfare benefit payment scheme which was originally scheduled to start in July.

However, resistance from bureaucrats has dragged the program and the benefits were given partially for July. Payments for August and September are yet to be made, a finance ministry official said.

“This is the best example to show the dysfunctional system of Sri Lanka’s bureaucracy,” the ministry source who has been directly working with the Aswesuma program said, asking not to be named.

“Some Grama Niladaris at grassroots level are not cooperating and some state officials are against the government’s decision to use non-government employees to collect data to select the deserved people,” the source said, adding that there has also been resistance at some District Secretariat level as well. “Overall, some bureaucrats have dragged this out,” he said.

The President Media Division (PMD) on Tuesday (24) citing Jayantha Wijeratne, chairman of Welfare Benefits Board, which oversees Aswesuma program said that, as of October 16, the government has disbursed 7.7 billion rupees to 1,230,097 families across five benefit categories related to July.

Citing a discussion on Aswesuma, the PMD said Wijeratne has also noted that the remaining payments for July will be finalized by December.

The statement also noted that there have been delays in providing payments to another group of beneficiaries due to various issues, including pending appeals and protest investigations. “The Minister of State for Finance emphasized the need to investigate the causes of these delays and expedite the disbursement of benefits,” the PMD said.

Quoting Wijeratne, it said that approximately 200,00 beneficiaries have faced delays in receiving payments because they haven’t opened bank accounts yet, and that once they open their accounts, they can promptly receive the associated payments without any issues.

“During the discussion, the importance of maintaining a robust unit within the divisional secretaries’ offices for the execution of the relief program was emphasized. Given the goal of completing benefit payment activities by the end of December, it was also suggested to declare a special work week to facilitate this,” the PMD said.

The government data showed there had been nearly one million appeals and 17,500 objections received for Aswesuma to make accurate determinations.

The new poverty alleviation program aimed at changing the previous politically motivated Samurdhi program, which was expanded to all the party supporters under the regime of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

A report by the country’s Auditor General in 2017 found Samurdhi had failed to alleviate poverty in Sri Lanka and discrepancies had been observed in the districts.

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) strong insistence to protect vulnerable groups through strong social safety nets compelled President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government to target the lower income and vulnerable groups for the new Aswesuma program.

However, when the government met with protests over the new program from the previous Samurdhi beneficiaries.

Over 1,280,000 families who had earlier received Samurdhi welfare benefits have applied for Aswesuma and 887,653 families have qualified, according to State Finance Minister Shehan Semasinghe.

The rest have protested and submitted appeals after the government request.

-economynext.com

 

Editor_1
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