Govt. installs new system to identify those who deserve welfare benefits

• A new welfare benefit information system to be launched to better identify vulnerable households and enable direct cash transfers
• Newly-appointed Welfare Benefit Board says data collection and verification will be done through smartphone app tested by UN
• Govt. currently provide welfare benefits to 3.3mn households; 600,000 new households expected under new system
• Treasury officials say households that unduly benefit from welfare benefit schemes would be eliminated under new system
• SL is already negotiating a US $ 300mn WB loan to fund next year’s welfare benefits 
• Treasury officials say IMF has also endorsed establishment of a welfare benefit information system under Welfare Benefits Act

By Nishel Fernando 

The government has deployed a new welfare benefit information system from next year onwards to provide better targeted social welfare benefits by way of direct cash transfers to the vulnerable groups in society. 

Treasury Secretary Mahinda Siriwardana yesterday revealed that the Welfare Benefit Board (WBB) has already called for applications from the public to identify and verify those who are in actual need of financial assistance, due to the current economic crisis.

Accordingly, the government expects 3.91 million households to become eligible for the social welfare benefit scheme, including new 600,000 households hit by the economic crisis. 

Currently, the government provides welfare benefits to 3.3 million identified beneficiary families as well as families that are in the waiting lists of the Samrudhi, disability, elderly and CKDU welfare schemes.

However, Siriwardana stressed that there is a significant number of families that are not receiving any welfare benefits while some families receive multiple social welfare benefits.

Treasury Additional Secretary Neel Bandara Hapuhinne noted that the households that unduly benefit from welfare benefits schemes would be eliminated once the new welfare benefit information system is in place. 

WBB Chairman B. Wijayarathne said 14,020 field officers are to be deployed at Divisional Secretariat Offices across the country for the purpose of data collection and data verification, which is to be conducted through a smartphone application tested by the United Nations (UN).

The final list of eligible social welfare applicants is expected to be published within the first quarter of next year, after evaluating the appeals and objections raised by the applicants and the public on the initial list selected by the selection committees at Divisional Secretariat level.  He assured that the seven-step process would be conducted transparently and in accordance with the Welfare Benefits Act of 2002.

Although the Welfare Benefits Act was legislated in 2002, he pointed out that it was only in 2016 that attempts were made to give effects to the act.  The act, through the WBB, lays out the process to establish a transparent selection process to identify social welfare recipients, with provisions for the termination of such benefits to undeserving recipients. The WBB was appointed by President Ranil Wickremasinghe this July.

The Treasury officials noted that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also endorsed the establishment of a welfare benefit information system under the act.

Simultaneously, the government has commenced negotiations for a US $ 300 million funding facility from the World Bank (WB) to fund social welfare schemes in the next year.  The WB and Asian Development Bank have stepped forward to provide additional funding for Sri Lanka’s social welfare schemes amid the economic crisis.