THE MINISTRY OF Social Affairs and Housing (Sozavo) has reported that the extent of fraud in Monikarta benefits is not yet clear. In the meantime, thirty files have been transferred to the police. He will continue the investigation. People have also been mutated or put at home while awaiting the results of the research.
The scale of this fraud, which apparently also involved collaboration with the banks, is truly worrying. Corruption seems to have become increasingly an everyday occurrence. In the past, it often involved top political figures and top officials who received money from the state through all kinds of tricks. The civil servants in lower positions seem to have an increasing need to catch up with their managers in the effort to create a ‘moni’.
“It is clear that responsibility for this government blunder lies with several parties”
This may certainly have to do with the horse trading that has increased in which political parties try to ‘take over’ a ministry with their ‘own people’. It has sometimes been said that cleaners are sometimes more powerful than the minister because they have lines with top political figures who have put them in a certain place.
It is known that Sozavo’s ministry has long had a certain reputation. Almost just like the Ministry of Land Policy and Forest Management (GBB). But while GBB is about obtaining plots, Sozavo is about obtaining government support. Yet it is important to look at the whole picture and not just consider the guilty officials. The government introduced a system whereby people must submit applications digitally and also have a bank account.
The government did not sufficiently identify the risks before introducing the system. Because if the target group is not internet-minded and is actually even illiterate, such a digital system actually makes citizens vulnerable. Third-party assistance will have to be called in to arrange registration and handling, and then sensitive information will have to be shared. In addition, people do not have a bank account if they do not work. That also creates openings: people are almost desperate for intermediaries who want to transfer money to their account.
And while the government is busy supporting ‘weak households’ with millions, there is a serious lack of workers on the labor market. This already indicates that the entire system needs to be overhauled, because the intention can never be to keep weak households weak. Has Sozavo’s ministry thought about how to sustainably remove these people from their current situation?
It is clear that responsibility for this government blunder lies with several parties. Among the managers who apparently devised this weak system, among the civil servants who abused it, but also partly among the population itself. When will the choice be made to take control of one’s own life into one’s own hands? Surinamese must abandon holding up hands that are not working.
