COVID-19: Govt plans advance payment for older persons

The government is considering paying older persons who benefit from the Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment (SAGE) for six months.

The head of Programme Management Unit (PMU) at Expansion Social Protection, Stephen Kasaija, said the plan is to pay the beneficiaries three months of their delayed payments and the other three in advance. The payments will be from January to June.

Gender, as the programme implementing ministry, has already recommended amendments in the programme implementing guidelines to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) to facilitate its implementation during this period of Coronavirus outbreak.

SAGE, is part of expanding social protection (ESP) programme and it provides a monthly allowance of sh25,000 to support older persons' welfare.

In November 2018, the government took a decision to roll out the SAGE programme, to all districts in the country, starting this financial year.

According to Kasaija, they are requesting for permission to shift pay points from the sub-county to villages or parishes depending on the number of beneficiaries in a given location.

"We plan to work with parish chiefs, village chairpersons and older persons' councils to see how we can pay the older persons without undermining the guidelines set out by the ministry of health to fight Coronavirus," he said.

Sh56b will be required for the six-month payment according to Kasaija. The programme total budget for the financial year 2019/2020 required to cover all people 80 years and above in the new districts and the existing beneficiaries is sh142.46b.

Of this, sh121.73b (85%) is for direct grants and related delivery costs for the current 167,676 beneficiaries and enrolment of an additional 200,000 new beneficiaries.

The remaining sh20.73b is to cover the programme rollout costs including local government support for mobilisation.

Kasaija said they want the arrangement of the programme national roll out to be done by the end of April. Payments are supposed to be made by the beginning of May.

President Yoweri Museveni launched SAGE national rollout in Mbale on March 8 and this coincided with the International Women's Day national celebrations. 

The 14 other districts of: Buliisa, Masindi, Mityana, Mubende, Serere, Soroti, Ngora, Bukedia, Maracha, Arua, Madi, Dokolo and Obongi, have already been prepared for payment.

The national rollout will see more 200,000 new beneficiaries enrolled in the programme and this will bring the total number of the beneficiaries to 367,676.

Currently, 167,676 older persons aged 65 years and above are already enrolled on the programme in the 66 districts.

"Due to COVID-19 we shall not gather older persons for verification in the remaining districts, but we have asked the government to change guidelines so that we are able to go through parish chiefs, LC1 chairpersons and older persons' councils to verify for us the eligible beneficiaries," Kasaija said.

Kasaija's communication comes shortly after the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Social Protection, protested against a circular by the finance ministry on payments during COVID19 Lock-down for excluding the payment of SAGE beneficiaries.

In the statement issued on February 2, 2020, Finance indicated that the priority areas for payments during the period are; salaries, wages and pensions for all ministries, departments, agencies and local governments.

Health sector-related payments include health ministry, regional referral hospitals and health facilities, plus security sector payments.

The statement further states that; "Payments outside the above categories are not a priority at the moment and will therefore not be handled until later."

"We, therefore, ask the finance ministry clarify on the payments of SAGE which is not categorically stated among the priority payments," Jacob Opolot, the chairperson of Uganda Parliamentary on Social Protection said.

He said the grant is critical especially during this period since this population will potentially be pushed into further vulnerability in light of adverse impacts COVID-19.