170,000 elders missing SAGE funds

At least 170,000 potential beneficiaries of the Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment (Sage) programme missed out on money in the financial years 2019/20, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022, a value-for-money audit into the programme has revealed.

 The November 2022 audit report published by the Office of the Auditor General examined the management of the Senior Citizens Grant by the expanding Social Protection Programme under the Ministry of Gender, which unearthed critical gaps and inadequacies in the programme implementation.

 The audit titled: Value for Money Audit Report on Management of Senior Citizens Grant by the Expanding Social Protection Programme under the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, also detailed how thousands of potential beneficiaries missed out due to lack of national IDs, system inadequacies and sicknesses, among others.

 Once Post Bank Uganda Ltd’s contract for disbursing money to the beneficiaries expired, the Local Government ministry contracted Centenary Bank Ltd to enrol beneficiaries and migrate their data from Post Bank Uganda to their new database.

 During this (migration) period, it was noted that 2,297 persons without national IDs, another 2,836 with NINs and another 4,666 ailing beneficiaries, who were originally with Post Bank Uganda Limited, were not enrolled with Centenary Bank.

 Whereas details of the ailing beneficiaries who were not enrolled with Centenary Bank Ltd were not availed to the auditors, the bank’s data indicated that it did not enrol 11,761 beneficiaries previously earning their grant from Post Bank Ltd due to the absence of beneficiary numbers.

 “The project’s management unit could also not explain the disparity in figures of the numbers of non-enrolment of beneficiaries from the two banks, the unit had a total of 9,799 while Centenary Bank had 11,761 beneficiaries,” Mr John Muwanga, the Auditor General, stated.

 The programme’s guidelines 2019 require ailing beneficiaries who wish to have alternative beneficiaries to have them registered and enrolled.

 However, the comparison of Sage data with Centenary Bank Ltd’s beneficiary data showed that 7,384 of 32,134 alternative recipients registered were missing from the bank’s data.

It was also established that the payment service providers (banks) contracted, left out a total of 18,045 of the 212,711 verified elders.

 At the time of the audit (October 2022), of 18,045, only 13,442 beneficiaries had been enrolled, the other 4,623 eligible persons of 80 years and above had been verified and registered by Sage but the payment service provider had neither enrolled them nor issued them with account numbers.

 Whereas the banks were required to communicate to the Ministry of Local Government reasons for delays, this was not done, contrary to the service level agreement.

 In some districts, some bank staff did not use electronic gadgets such as biometric machines in capturing information while others used personal phone cameras to take beneficiary photographs and capture personal data such as National IDs details which end up being lost or mixed up.

 Mr Stephen Kasaija, the head of the Sage programme at the MGLSD, says Centenary Bank’s database left out many beneficiaries previously getting money from Post Bank due to lack of national IDs.

 This newspaper established that once the programme rolled out in 2011 since there were no national IDs, beneficiaries were allowed to register for the money using local IDs, baptism tickets and/or driving permits and village structures helped to recommend and confirm their ages.

 Many beneficiaries were registered with Post Bank without national IDs but once Sage switched to Centenary Bank, all the banks had been directed by Bank of Uganda to use national IDs to open bank accounts and many elders got stuck.

 “Since then, we have worked with Nira and many of the beneficiaries have been registered and got national IDs to open their new accounts and are now benefitting,” Mr Kasaija said.

He added: “To open new accounts with Centenary Bank, each of these elders was required to have a national ID, many did not have it and could not be absorbed by the bank but we have engaged Centenary Bank on the issue of beneficiaries left out, and it is being handled.” 

The audit has also indicated that up to 11,891 potential beneficiaries did not have national ID cards while 41,413 potential beneficiaries were not targeted for having erroneous birth dates on their IDs and required re-verification by Nira.

 “In Mpigi, Mukono, Kaliro, Kamuli, Oyam, Pader, Manafwa, Bududa and Omoro, some of the potential beneficiaries’ who physically appeared to have attained the required age of 80 years had errors in their IDs while others did not have National IDs and hence missed out from the grant,”  the report stated.

 Of the 41,413 who had errors in their IDs, only 1,798 filled Form 1 for notification of change and were vetted by the Vetting Committee and completed statutory declarations to support their applications in the districts of Ngora, Kakumiro and Sheema.

 “However, of the 1798 potential beneficiaries who filled the forms, only 1,450 applicants were successful whereas 348 applications were rejected by the vetting committee due to more discrepancies,” it stated.

 Despite successfully identifying 1,450 potential beneficiaries in the three districts to have been of the right age, Nira  did not issue them with IDs because the magistrates could not administer the required oath, the report says in part.

 “The Magistrate could not administer oaths without physical verification of potential beneficiaries who needed to swear affidavits to amend their ages on the national IDs.”

 It was also found that thousands of potential beneficiaries could not afford the Shs30,000 to file the mandatory statutory declaration with URSB and the Shs50,000 for the Nira card replacement fee.

 “Some potential beneficiaries were too frail to commute to Nira offices to have their data captured. At the initial registration by Nira, some potential beneficiaries were given the wrong ages. This lack of national IDs has disqualified many senior citizens resulting in many not being able to benefit,” it stated.

 However, Mr Kasaija explained that the biggest hurdle to getting more elderly people on board was lack of national IDs.

 “We are currently struggling with older persons who did not get or register for national IDs from the beginning and yet that is one key requirement. Some of these very old people you get surprised to find somebody who is 90 years old and does not have an ID and you have to start the process afresh,” he said.

 He added that the Sage secretariat is working closely with Nira and they have reached an arrangement to fast-track the processing of the IDs of these specific beneficiaries.

 “Remember Nira is guided by the law and some processes have to take time. Those who did not have national IDs, we have worked with Nira to identify them, and Nira has successfully now registered many of them who have now joined the programme and are getting the money,” he said.

Mr Kasaija said the biggest challenge is elders who gave wrong information while registering for national IDs.

 “For example, someone who is 90 years old is captured as 60 years old yet the programme targets 80 years old and above and changing those ages even within Nira is a very tedious process that takes a lot of resources and time”

“The ministry has written to Nira, Ministry of Internal Affairs and URSB to secure some waivers for these elders where fees are required,” he added.

 In the three years reviewed by the audit, a total of 285,778 elders were targeted. However, only 226,195 beneficiaries were verified by Project Management Unit (PMU) leaving out 59,583 targeted beneficiaries.

 Although PMU attributed the unverified persons to have been absent during the verification period, the audit revealed that beneficiaries were not verified due to the absence of verification plans by Regional Technical Support Units.

 A lack of policy and other guidelines to verify potential beneficiaries that relocate from areas where they registered for national identity cards also forced other beneficiaries to miss the money, this publication established.

 While long distances to the points of verification hindered the movement of elder persons, the audit also revealed that of the 226,195 beneficiaries verified in the three years under review, only 159,282 were registered leaving 66,913 unregistered.

 “Most of the potential beneficiaries are weak, and distances to registration points are more than 5km for some of the potential beneficiaries. This has demotivated them from accessing registration points. The reasons for non-registration of beneficiaries were; absent, relocated, dead and sick during registration.”

 A review of beneficiary payrolls and payment schedules for the financial years of 2019/20 to 2021/22 from the Ministry of Local Government and Sage officials revealed that some beneficiaries were paid quarterly and others would receive grants after six months.

 “Management attributed quarterly payments to the cost incurred by beneficiaries to collect their grant. Similarly, some pay points are far from the older persons’ homes hence travelling long distances (transport) at Shs30,000. The bi-monthly grant payments would, therefore, leave the recipient with only Shs20,000.”

 By June 2020, the programme reportedly had 379,801 beneficiaries. However, information of both active and inactive bank accounts provided by the (Centenary) bank revealed 3,344 inactive bank accounts by October 2022 with bank balances totalling to Shs740.13 million.

 The programme’s management unit explained to the auditors that the inactive accounts were due to failure to identify unreported deaths at the pay points, ailing beneficiaries and beneficiaries who were unaware that their accounts had been opened.

Meanwhile, the withdrawal of the development partner assistance in June 2022 caused a huge funding gap to the programme.

 To date, there are accumulated arrears of more than Shs7b.

 Mr Kasaija explained that the gap they realised upon the exit of the partners was financing the programme logistics.

“When the partners left, we did not have gaps in paying beneficiaries, the only gap was in supporting operations, and logistics which we are trying to cope up with. The logistics in terms of training and building capacities of service providers, etc.,” he stated.

 On the demands for the programme’s age limit to be lowered across the country from 80 years to 70, Mr Kasaija said  it would only depend on government.

 “Unfortunately, we don’t have such resources immediately but as programme managers, we have continued to engage Parliament, Cabinet to present our findings and seek their support.

“The other cry is that the cost of living (inflation) has gone high and that we needed to increase the disbursement amount from Shs25,000 upwards but that also requires us to engage with the government considering our current financial standing,” he added.

 The grant was initially Shs23,000 and it increased to Shs25,000 every month.

 About 47.6 percent of disabled persons are widowed, 4.4 percent are separated, 1.8 percent are unmarried, 1.7 percent are divorced, 12 percent are in polygamous marriages, and 32.6 percent are in monogamous marriages.

 Mr Muwanga observed that the funding inadequacies will severely impact the programme even though the government raised the minimum age at which beneficiaries are eligible to 80 years to limit the number of beneficiaries and make it less costly.

He added: “The continued failure by the government to release all the budgeted funds, and the expected funding gap of Shs26.9 billion in the financial year 2022/2023 will impact the programme objectives and sustainability, especially now that the development partners are no longer funding the programme.”

 The Auditor General’s audit report indicates that while in 2018/2019 government had pending arrears of Shs6.6b, a year later, they had accumulated to Shs34.7b.   Mr Kasaija said he needed more time to consult on whether these arrears were cleared.

Recommendations

To improve efficiency and achieve the intended targets, the Auditor General recommended that the government needs to urgently clear all the accumulated arrears owed to the senior citizens and also strengthen its systems in terms of creating awareness and building capacity of the local governments.

 “The government should consider creating a social protection fund to solve the problem of funding. Social protection cannot rely on releases and consider revising its decision that was put on a halt to have the Local Governments fully run the programme,”the report recommended.

About sage

The Ministry of Gender in partnership with the British Department for International Development (DFID) and Irish Aid in 2010 started implementing the Expanding Social Protection Programme (ESPP) in which cash transfers have since been provided to the poorest and most vulnerable people in Uganda.

By 2021, of Uganda’s projected total population of 42,885,900 persons, those above 60 years of age stood at 1,715,436 (4 percent). Of these, approximately 32 percent (548,940) of all older persons were reported not to be working and were not searching for one.

 Between 2018 and 2022, the government and development partners have cumulatively spent Shs423.68 billion (Government Shs274.64b and Development partners Shs148.68b).

 The Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment (Sage) under the ESPP is a non-contributory, unconditional, regular and reliable cash transfer scheme that provides relief from deprivation to vulnerable older persons.

 In November 2018, the government rolled out Sage to all districts, starting with people who are 80 years and above in the new districts, while keeping all those who were already enrolled on the programme since its inception.

 By August 2020, the grant had reached older persons in all the 146 districts in the country covering approximately 379,801 beneficiaries across the 146 districts.