SOCIAL Welfare
minister Paul Mavima has revealed that government has only managed to pay about
202 000 vulnerable people out of the targeted one million the monthly $180
cushioning allowance, saying Treasury is yet to release the needed funds to
support the programme.
This comes as in May this year Mavima told the Daily News,
on the side-lines of the burial of Zanu PF politburo member Absalom Sikhosana
at the National Heroes Acre in Harare, that government had paid 201 000 people
the $180 cushioning allowance, despite having promised to increase the money to
$300.
Speaking during a post-Cabinet media briefing held in
Harare on Tuesday night, Mavima said the government was aware that the promised
grant had been eroded by inflation and that the slow pace in paying the
allowance to the vulnerable was because Treasury had not yet availed the
necessary funds.
“The grant started off at $180, but it’s now at $300.
Repeatedly, we have said that we continue to engage the Treasury to increase
and release more funding. “However, all these are functions of the budget and
available resources.
“As such, we will continue to engage Treasury on issues of
the money and whether we can up it a little bit, taking into account the issue
of inflation.
“We have now paid about 202 077 beneficiaries and we
continue registering others and we will be paying them $300 this month.
“Initially, we experienced delays in registering people
because we wanted to make sure that those who are registered are really
bonafide vulnerable people and we had to go over the database many times over,”
Mavima said.
Since the beginning
of the national lockdown imposed to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus
(Covid-19), many people, particularly those in the informal sector, lost their
sources of income thereby making them vulnerable to starvation.
Several civil society organisations have called on the
government to expedite the implementation of social protection measures to
cushion citizens who have lost their sources of livelihoods.
“The government continues to reiterate that it will
implement the social protection programme to vulnerable households which will
see them receiving cash transfers of $300 per month as support income. However,
nothing of this sort has been fulfilled.
“To make matters worse, the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe
has stated that a family of six now requires $8 551 for groceries a month while
a further $5 666 is required for basic requirements such as housing and
clothing.
“The administrative and operational delays in disbursing
social protection grants by the government, while communities face increased
hunger and destitution with little relief, and in the face of soaring inflation
is untenable.
This has raised a general sense of discontent and
disgruntlement by the communities over the delays in the implementation of
social protection measures,” the Women’s Coalition in Zimbabwe (WCOZ) said.
Meanwhile, Mavima indicated that the cushioning allowance
was meant to assist vulnerable people access basics rather than to cater for
all their needs.
“When we introduced the Covid-19 grant, the intention was
to enable people to access basics such as mealie-meal.
We have other programmes that were running already like the
cash transfer programme where people were getting $180 and other programmes
from our partners such as the WFP and these are complementing the Covid-19 cushioning
allowance,” Mavima said. Daily News
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