SOCIAL Welfare minister Paul Mavima yesterday revealed that
government is currently giving a $180 cushioning allowance to vulnerable
persons instead of the initial $300 due to a shortage of funds.
This comes as the government recently indicated that the
cushioning allowance for vulnerable groups that have been affected by the
coronavirus (Covid-19)-induced national lockdown, had been raised to $300 from
$200 as the government had delayed in paying the money by more than a month
because of database challenges.
Speaking on the sidelines of the burial of Zanu PF
politburo member Absolom Sikhosana at the National Heroes Acre in Harare
yesterday, Mavima said the $300 would start being paid in June.
“As you know we had to delay a bit in making the cash
transfers because we had to clean up the original database of vulnerable people
and we now have a database with 201 000 people.
“Therefore, the payments for this month started last week.
People are receiving $180 per person.
“This is because we thought we would marry two programmes,
the one where we have always been giving $180 and the one for people who have
become vulnerable as a result of the national lockdown, using the resources
that have been released. We are sure that all the 201 000 will be paid $180
each this month,” Mavima said.
He further said that vulnerable people would be getting the
$300 starting from June and that this would continue until the end of the year.
“They (vulnerable groups) will be getting $300 and this
programme will continue to maybe up to the end of the year.
“There have been changes in the amount that we are supposed
to pay. We had initially said $200, but for this month we paid $180.
“However, for June we are going to pay $300 per person and
we hope that our database will have grown so that we reach more people.
“We will also continue registering people. There were
delays in registering people because we wanted to make sure that those who are
registered are really vulnerable people and we had to go over that database
many times over.
“Initially we had wanted to make sure that we reach as many
as one million Zimbabweans, including those in urban areas who have lost income
due to the Covid-19 lockdown,” Mavima said.
He added that the people who have so far received the $180
included vendors and those from the informal sector whose sources of income
have been affected by the national lockdown. Daily News
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