24 Jun 2015

The Poso Card initiative has not yielded the intended benefits of making old age pension allowance easily accessible to beneficiaries, says North West District council chairman, Mr Reaboka Mbulawa.

Delivering speech during the ongoing council meeting on June 22, Mr Mbulawa said there had been an outcry from bedridden beneficiaries concerning failure to get their monthly allowances for more than three months, though they were issued with cards.

Poso Card is an electronic smart card that enables old age community to access their social benefit every month. The new initiative was introduced by Botswana Post to replace the current coupon system used to pay social beneficiary money.

 Mr Mbulawa explained that the social pension office is overwhelmed with pensioners referred by Botswana Post to complete life declaration though they had completed the forms and appeared on the payroll listing.

“This has resulted in a lot of pensioners, mostly bedridden accumulating arrears due to this setback,” he said. The chairman mentioned some of the areas of concerns with regard to Poso Card such as; most cards issued to beneficiaries have never worked; some cards are not able to pick or load arrears paid in the previous months and that could lead to beneficiaries losing track of arrears owed to them. 

Another concern mentioned was that; Maun Post Office operates with a single machine to enroll beneficiaries and this in its own is a limitation as most beneficiaries are aged, sick and could not queue awaiting assistance.

To address the situation, Mr Mbulawa told the meeting that the district commissioner’s office is engaging the director of Social Services to assist in resolving the issue with Botswana Post. 

On other issues, he said the council continues to experience serious shortage of Smart switch cards for social safety nets beneficiaries and as such all newly registered and those whose cards are damaged or lost do not get their dues on time.

Mr Mbulawa revealed that a request for additional cards has been submitted to the department of Social Protection and feedback is awaited. 

He said the situation is worrisome as it hampers provision of services to the people, noting that while awaiting correction of the issue, the department is on alert to assist beneficiaries who encounters problems.

He also informed the councillors that the council had noted a slight increase in the uptake of the social safety nets programme as compared to the last update of his speech. 

He said currently registration stands at 3174 permanent destitute persons, 398 temporary destitute, 3101 orphans, 284 community home based care patients and 3459 needy students.

Mr Mbulawa noted that the beneficiaries do receive their dues as prescribed by the policies and guidelines that govern implementation, amidst the challenges such as availability of electronic coupon cards and limited transport.

 The chairman noted that Revised National Policy on Destitute Persons of 2002 had been aligned to poverty eradication threshold income.

It now stipulates that the threshold for an individual eligible for assistance under destitution is P300 per month or should possess six livestock instead of five livestock. ENDS