The Government has today announced how the Inflation Mitigation Assistance for families, students, social welfare recipients, pensioners and after-care beneficiaries will be rolled out in the coming weeks.
Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says the support will be provided on a per-child basis for families who earn less than $50,000 in combined annual household income and in total, families will receive $180 per child over a six-month period.
He says families with children in Year 13 or below who currently receive subsidised transportation assistance can fill out a simple manual form that calls for MPAiSA/MyCASH account details to receive assistance.
Sayed-Khaiyum says as these students already qualify for transportation assistance, there will be no need for additional income verification.
He says the fastest way to submit and process applications is online through the Inflation Mitigation Application System (https://assistance.digitalfiji.gov.fj) which is now open and will close on 30th September 2022.
Manual forms will be available at all schools from tomorrow which can be filled out and submitted in the school.
He says $180 payments per child will be paid to families as and when applications are received.
Sayed-Khaiyum says payments will be made on 1st September for all applications processed before that date and subsequent payments for later applicants will be made on 15th September, 30th September, 14th October, and 31st October 2022.
He also says families earning below $50,000 annually and whose children do not currently receive transportation assistance can apply for assistance through the Ministry of Education by the same manual application form available at schools or online.
The Minister adds parents of children who are below Year 1 can either apply through the online inflation mitigation application system or through manual application forms available at Legal Aid Offices and their nearest schools.
Government pensioners and after-care beneficiaries will receive a direct additional top-up of $180 to their accounts on 31st August.
Similarly, all social welfare recipients will also receive a direct additional top-up of $180 to their accounts on 5th September.
Sayed-Khaiyum says approximately $18 million will be paid to more than 90,000 social welfare recipients and around 8,000 government pensioners and after-care recipients.
No applications are required for these groups of individuals.
All registered tertiary students under TELS and the Toppers Scholarship will be paid a lump sum payment of $180 on 5th September to their bank accounts. Sayed-Khaiyum says more than 13,000 TELS/Toppers’ recipients will be assisted with approximately $2.4 million.
He says tertiary students under the TELS/Toppers scholarship do not need to apply.
The Minister for Economy says those tertiary students who are not receiving TELS/Toppers scholarships can apply online through the online Inflation Mitigation Application System (https://assistance.digitalfiji.gov.fj).
All applications will close on 30th September 2022 and final payments will be paid out on 31st October 2022.
During the press conference, we asked Sayed-Khaiyum for his comments regarding Minister for Education, Premila Kumar’s call that the $180 money should be used for children’s food and whatever they need and not for grog and cigarettes.
We also told Sayed-Khaiyum regarding concerns raised last year where a number of people who received their $360 government unemployment assistance crowded up in shops and supermarkets to buy alcohol.
He says they can’t control what people buy. Sayed-Khaiyum says a very small amount of people had bought alcohol.
He says there is a particular level of trust the Government is putting onto the parents and social welfare recipients.
Sayed-Khaiyum says studies have shown that if 90 percent of people put money to good use, then they are achieving the target.
He then claimed that Communications Fiji Limited and Fiji Times only focus on people who have not put the money to good use.
Communications Fiji Limited, the parent company of fijivillage, FM96, LegendFM, VitiFM, Navtarang and Radio Sargam, is independent, and stands for fairness and balance. We are not involved in personalising issues.
When contacted, The Fiji Times Editor-in-Chief, Fred Wesley says it is unfortunate the Attorney-General has chosen to attack them.
He says obviously his opinion differs from theirs.
Wesley adds The Fiji Times does not exist to create positive headlines for the Government and it exists to publish all views and to ensure there is balanced coverage of the news and political debate.
Stay tuned for the latest news on our radio stations
