Procedure for accruing and issue of benefits to low-income families requires changes. Vice Speaker of the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan Aida Kasymalieva told at a round table meeting today.
She recalled that amendments to the law on state benefits came into force in 2018. But, as a monitoring has shown, many of its provisions did not influence the targeting and access to benefits.
«Monitoring continues throughout the year. We were not looking for the guilty, it was important for us to understand what pros and cons appeared after changes to the law,» said Aida Kasymalieva.
The deputy noted that monitoring showed: the problems remained the same.
«People mostly live together in the villages, and the house register is common. But exclusion of pensioners did not help, if in 2017 the number of benefits’ recipients amounted to 272,000 people, then in 2019 — 311,000. Given the increase in the birth rate, the number of recipients increased by 0.6 percent,» said Aida Kasymalieva.
The MP added that during the development of the bill, emphasis was placed on ensuring that families would be able to receive benefits regardless of where they were registered.
«We have a lot of migrants, especially in newly built quarters. We suggested removing the certificate from the place of registration so that they could receive benefits. But this only positively influenced single mothers with children under three years old. In all other cases, able-bodied family members must be registered by the employment service at the place of registration,» she said.
Another serious barrier is that families in need of benefits need to obtain certificates.
«There are facts when they are verbally demanded money for help in obtaining documents. People have very little information where to turn, how to draw them up,» said Aida Kasymalieva.
