The Center for Public Integrity (CIP) paid a visit to the District Services for Health, Women and Social Action (SDSMAS), more specifically to the Repartição da Mulher e Acção Social (RMAS) in the district of Matutuine and the scenario it observed portrays various problems that denounce the government's neglect of this sector in recent years.
In this district, the CIP visited the town of Mabilibile and found that, as is the case elsewhere, the beneficiaries of the Basic Social Subsidy Program (PSSB) were selected by people without technical knowledge of the selection criteria. But what is most worrying is that the beneficiaries had not received the subsidy for 6 months.
Furthermore, the two techniques assigned to RMAS do not have the means or even information on the number of INAS beneficiaries at district level. They work in a room shared with health technicians from the local health center, they do not have the technical resources to carry out their functions of management and monitoring of beneficiaries. They only exercise their functions when they receive technicians from the central or provincial level delegation of INAS.
These problems, associated with the fact that there is a lack of coordination between INAS at the level of Maputo province, the District Administration and RMAS and the Health Directorate, together with delays in the disbursement of funds, lead to different decisions and processes at the level of the Maputo province are taken without the involvement of the actual program implementers, a fact that contributes to poor planning, conflict of interests in defining criteria for identifying beneficiaries and to the slow response capacity to the needs of the beneficiaries.
This situation occurs in a context in which the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) disclosed, in a document on the status of commitments under COVID-19, that the National Institute of Social Action (INAS) will benefit from 20 million of dollars within the scope of COVID-19 to increase in 186% the number of current Beneficiary Households (AF) which will increase from 592,179 to 1,695,004 and, for 6 months, support families with monthly subsidies of 1,500.00 Mts bimonthly.
However, without taking measures to improve and make budget allocations for programs more efficient by increasing human resources, the actions of INAS will not have the desired impact among these populations. The context of INAS resource management in this case can be taken as a basis to generalize to the country, so that deep reforms are made to improve the conditions of people living in poverty and vulnerability in Mozambique, with an emphasis on women , elderly, orphaned children and heads of households and disabled people.
