Lekjaa explains the rejection of 150,000 requests for social support in one month

Agadir24

Aziz Akhannouch’s government rejected more than 150,000 applications for direct social support in March 2024.

According to the Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget, Fouzi Lekjaa, 65% of the rejected requests were related to lump-sum assistance, while 35% of the requests related to protection allowances linked to childhood risks were rejected.

In response to a written question from the Progress and Socialism Group in the House of Representatives, Lakjaa explained that the reasons for the rejection are mainly due to not meeting the conditions for benefiting from the program, which include not meeting the threshold set at 9.743001, or benefiting from one of the family compensation systems in force.

In addition, the Minister Delegate confirmed that among the reasons for rejection is also that one of the spouses or the head of the family is an employee, assistant or worker of the state, territorial groups or public institutions, or that he is a pensioner in the public or private sector, or a beneficiary of compensation within the framework of non-contributory systems.

In parallel, 44.5% of applications were rejected due to incorrect data provided or its non-conformity with the information in the Unified Social Register.

The Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget concluded that families whose application was rejected can file a complaint or grievance with the departments responsible for the unified social registry or with the departments responsible for managing the direct social support system.

The same speaker pointed out that a special call center has been allocated for the program to handle complaints, grievances and information requests, noting that the center has received more than 1.1 million calls since the program was launched.

It is worth noting that the government had announced the start of registration to benefit from the direct social support program starting from December 2, 2023, for families that meet the conditions stipulated in Law 58.23, as the program relies on the unified social registry system, which is an information system that registers families and individuals wishing to benefit from social support programs.

This has caused widespread controversy as many families have been deprived of this support following having benefited from it for months. The issue has reached Parliament and has been addressed by many parties and organizations, which have called for revealing the reasons for this deprivation and enabling the deserving groups to receive support.