DPM CONFIRMS BID TO REMOVE SOME ELDERLY FROM GRANTS

LOBAMBA – The Deputy Prime Minister’s (DPM) office will embark on an exercise to remove elderly people who are beneficiaries of other pension schemes, whether public or private from the grants.

The DPM, Thulisile Dladla, told members of the office’s portfolio committee yesterday, that the office would introduce initiatives that would ensure government grants were received by people who really needed them. The DPM, during the ministry’s annual performance report and budget debate yesterday, told the House of Assembly Portfolio Committee that her office noted during Sibaya that emaSwati called for an increment of elderly and disability grants. Currently, the elderly receive E500, while it is E280 for those with disabilities. She said while they were preparing the budget, they made a request to increase the disability grant to E500, but the Public Budget Committee approved E400. Dladla mentioned that while they were in consultations and assessing the grants, they uncovered a lot of bottlenecks in terms of the beneficiaries of these grants. She said, however, the disability grant increment could not be halted by the bottlenecks they had identified.

The DPM said they were cognisant  of the fact that the grants were not servicing the needs of the beneficiaries, hence they needed to employ more strategies to increase them. She told the MPs that they had noted that some of the individuals who were benefitting from the elderly grants had worked before and were beneficiaries of some other pension schemes. Noteworthy, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security statistics for 2021, showed that around 27 000 beneficiaries of the elderly grants were also beneficiaries of Public Service Pensions Fund (PSPF) and other local pension schemes.

Beneficiaries

The DPM said such people did not really need the grant, hence her office would craft a way of seeing how they could remove or reduce the share of those beneficiaries. Dladla made an example of herself that after her term, she would not expect the grant as her pension would be more than the E500. Every liSwati aged 60 years old and above qualifies for the elderly grant. The DPM said the exercise they would embark on, would formulate a law that would identify who should qualify for the elderly grant in terms of economic status, among other criteria. Currently, the elderly grant disbursement does not have legislation. The DPM said through legislation, they would remove some of those who benefit from other schemes. “I know this exercise will make us unpopular but it will save those who have no other means of income except for the elderly grants,” she said. Dladla said they were looking at engaging an entity that would be in the form of a parastatal, to facilitate all the grants and conduct proper checks on beneficiaries.

The DPM added that some of those who benefitted from the grants would not be removed but might get half. The DPM added that they would draw close attention to the orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs). Ntfonjeni Member of Parliament (MP) Raymond Dlamini lauded the DPM’s Office for reviewing the disability grant. The MP mentioned that people with disabilities also went to the same stores as everyone else and got no special price. He said their grant was too little. Ludzeludze MP Nomkhosi Masuku supported the DPM’s move to increase the elderly grant and further reduce it for those who were benefitting from other pension schemes.

Wealthy

“While I support that move, the DPM should understand that there are those wealthy elderly people who have never worked in their entire life, those shouldn’t be benefitting like the needy ones,” she said. The MP also stated that there were PSPF members who worked as government cleaners and orderlies, whose pension was very little, around E800 to E1 300, who should not be removed. Motshane MP Wilton Nkambule echoed the MP’s words, stating that  one way to address poverty was to increase elderly grants. He stated that some of the issues like health in the country were caused by hunger. The MP said the elderly grant should at least be increased to E1 000. He even suggested that maybe MPs could contribute E1 000 from their salaries for the elderly grant increment.

Pensioners

Manzini North MP Mashayinkonjane Nhlengetfwa advised that the exercise by the DPM should not only focus on the public sector pensioners, but private sector pensioners as well.
The DPM, in response, explained that they would not abruptly remove all senior citizens who were beneficiaries of other pension schemes, but they would categorise them. “What we normally hear from those who benefit in other schemes is that they use the E500 to buy airtime and believe it was their right to get it,” she said. Dladla said that would come to an end because the grant did not have legislation that had a criterion and regulations on how it would work. She said the formation of legislation would clearly state who should benefit from the grant, not the current formula which enabled everyone above 60 to qualify.

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