It is a common occurrence that every time general elections are approaching the budget of the social security is increased… because, believe it or not, poverty increases at the time of general elections. We all know somebody who works or has a connection with the Social Security Department and they all tell you that they feel utterly disgusted at the millions of euros from taxpayer’s money that is forked out in social security benefits.
I am not saying that these benefits should be abolished, but that greater care must be given in distributing these benefits. It is no longer the case that that money is government’s money because it is our money too. It is rather strange that on the one hand, we boast of the progress that is being achieved by this country, and on the other hand, social security benefits are increasing. One thing does not tally with the other because if we are better off we must be better off in everything, even in our standard of living.
This is the same as the recent flattering of the long queues of people awaiting to subscribe to the subsidized internet offer: the government saw it as a sign of progress but I tend to see it more as a sign of regression, when we still have thousands of us who cannot afford €3 a month for the internet. So there is a contradiction as to how this country measures its rate of progress, and it is a shame that the National Statistics Office is an accomplice to this confusion. Allow me to remind you that we are still without the Director for the department and that we are still flagrantly defying Brussels by having the regulator wearing the same cap as the acting director of this department. I am not a statistician but all the technical people, including the GRTU, have been saying lately that there is a conflict between the two roles.
But let me revert back to social security benefits. As taxpayers I believe that we all have a right to ask questions and put pressure so that abuses are curbed. It is true that the Ministry is doing its utmost to diminish abuses but it is also true that there seems to be no hard and fast rule as to how such benefits are reimbursed by those who were responsible for their payment in the first place. Married women whose husbands fail to pay maintenance for them and their children receive social security allowances from the state; but the state tends to pick and choose whom to ask for refunds for such allowances.
Unmarried women who declare that their children have no known father are given a carte blanche by the department, and allowed to make false declarations; because as we all know, any woman who does not know who fathered her children must be the biggest whore in Malta, to confuse the men that she has been with.
Even in this case, children remain with this stigma and no effort is done by the department to give ultimatums to these women, to start court proceedings against the father of their children, even at the department’s expense, so that fathers assume their responsibility. Mind you, there are cases when the natural father gives maintenance to their children, but the mothers continue to defy the system in order to receive an additional allowance from the state.
Another instance when the system is being abused involves cases where the minimum income is declared by certain self-employed individuals, so that they continue to receive the perks that the minimum wage brings with it: including subsidised electricity and water rates, children’s allowance, free medicines, etc, etc. It seems that the department relies only on their income declaration without verifying the amount of property they own, their boat or boats, their standard of living, and so on.
This has been going on for ages and it still seems that the department still relies solely on the information provided and the moneys they hold in the bank. It is no excuse that the department has no resources – the onus should be on the applicant to declare what other assets he/she has, or his/her interests in commercial companies. The responsibility lies with the department to check the veracity of them all. In this IT period, it is easy to p do this at the touch of a button.
Why does the department allow people on social assistance to buy property? This is something that I cannot digest, just as I cannot digest how the CIR does not intervene in these kind of case and it seems that as long as capital gains and duties are paid, he does not care where the money came from.
This is why I say that there is something in the system that does not make sense: can someone on Lm120 a month social assistance, afford to buy property? Can you afford to do your nails and go abroad on such a meager sum of money? But it seems that many people can perform miracles and afford all this on LM120 monthly. It is no secret that many of them work and I do not blame them because the system is telling them to do exactly that: get Lm120 monthly from the state, work two or three mornings or five mornings a week for another Lm200 tax free, and that will work out to be more rewarding that getting a 40-hour job at a minimum wage of Lm250 a week. Can you blame them for being so enterprising?
Of course not, but I surely blame the system for discouraging rather than encouraging the people to be lawfully employed. Once you are lawfully employed, you tend to earn less for more hours, and lose many of your social security benefits.
There is no doubt in my mind that the whole system has to be revamped: first of all the benefits should be made public to all and not as the situation is today: only those who make use of the benefits know most what benefits are in store for us. For example, did you know that you could get an allowance for breastfeeding your baby? I got to know this from women who are on social assistance and it seems that this allowance is there for every woman, irrespective of her income. That is why I firmly believe that the department of social security must revise the existing benefits, and update the list because not all apply to this day and age, and publish the list of benefits that the department has available.
It is every taxpayer’s right to know what benefits are available by the department and the criteria for eligibility of such benefits.
And mentioning the taxpayer, I do not see why the Health Department is dragging its feet in making it a policy to request the empty medicine containers to be returned to the department or to the pharmacy of your choice in order to curb abuses. Why should the patients continue to be flooded with waste of medicines for fear that if they discontinue the supply order, they stand a chance of not being given the medicine when they really need it? Does it take too much study for the department to decide to abolish such waste? I know for a fact that the Malta Asthma Society has been advising for ages the Health Department to exchange the empty inhalers for new ones, but so far, this suggestion has fallen on deaf ears.
How can we believe the government when it tells us it needs money for the purchase of oil, but than he has the money for such waste? I repeat there is something in the system that does not make sense.