LEGAL action is being taken to return all social welfare payments given by mistake to ineligible people including five MPs and 11 municipal councillors, said the Labour and Social Development Ministry last night.
In a statement, the ministry blamed the 16 public representatives for not updating their status fast enough after being elected in December 2018.
It added that when the updates were made the electronic system stopped dispensing the payments.
The cases were highlighted in the 2019-2020 Administrative and Financial Audit Bureau report made public yesterday.
“We are currently working on new updates to the automated system that would give us fresh information from other government sources,” said the ministry.
“Legal action is being taken to return all of the money wrongly taken.”
Employed
Meanwhile, the ministry admitted it employed some of those still employed or pensioners because the system showed them differently without update, while stating cases of employers backdating registration and due payments for those who used to work for them or pension procedures taking time.
“We now have a strong system that doesn’t see such cases pass with being linked to the Information and eGovernment Authority.”
The ministry said that in the case of not helping those receiving social welfare complete studies, it has already started doing so through a programme to get them employed.
“Families on social welfare are also being helped to depend on themselves and gradually ease out of government support.”
“Any payment is dispensed rightfully since it is based on information provided by government bodies concerned and there is no case in where dead received payments since the system would have overruled them – it meant they were alive when they received it.
“However, to avoid payments to the dead, and they are few in the cases mentioned in the report, we are working to get such information directly as a person is entered dead by any government body.”
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