H.E.A.ARIUNZAYA: I consider it is necessary to reduce children's allowance after the pandemic situation improves
Interview with H.E. A.Ariunzaya, Minister for Labour and Social Protection
Ninety-four percent of those excluded from food stamps were households with more than 200 head of livestock.
How are the planned activities of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection progressing? What have you been focusing on lately?
- Our sector covers a wide range of issues, for instance, population development, employment, vocational education and social protection, and so on. Therefore, we are trying not to leave any issues behind. The government and our sector are implementing a comprehensive policy on the transition from welfare to employment, creating a favorable environment for citizens to work and develop, improving social security, ensuring human development, and so on. In addition, we can here mention the digitization of our sector.
In particular, the long-awaited revised version of the Labour Law, which will take effect next year, has been approved by the Parliament of Mongolia. The Foundation for Children has been reestablished aiming to support the development, protection, and participation of children. Also, the Law on Amendments to the Law on the Rights of the Child and to the Law on Road Transport have been approved.
This will enable us to create a legal environment to manage the Children's Fund in a transparent and efficient way. In doing this, respective funding will be efficiently allocated to create a child-friendly environment as well as to support children's development. There are also a number of issues that have attracted a lot of public attention recently, including changes in the procedure for issuing food vouchers.
We are working to streamline welfare while increasing employment.
The fact that citizens with 2 cars and a house receive food vouchers is bringing up a lot of public criticism. What measures are being taken regarding the aforementioned issue? Has the welfare system been monitored electronically to prevent such violations in the future?
-Food and nutrition support program has been implemented since 2013.
Since then, food scores and child allowances have been provided to low-income households by calculating the household score based on the income substitution surveys. Now, child allowances are provided to everyone who applies. During the pandemic, children residing permanently abroad are also covered by this service.
Within the framework of E-Mongolia, the Government has set a goal to digitize the entire labour and social protection sector, making its services provided to citizens prompt, transparent, accessible, and controlled. In this context, the amendments were made to the Regulation on Food Support Services using information available to the government. The goal of digitization is to ensure transparency, equitable access, alternative options of services, and other necessary arrangements are stipulated in the amendment. In particular, social welfare service organizations, their employees, Livelihood support council members, unit leaders, who participate in the decision-making process are forbidden to be covered in the service.
In particular, social service organizations, their staff, and members of the Livelihood Support Council, including ward leaders, who are involved in the decision-making process are prohibited from accessing the service. Also, it is stipulated that if a household is identified to own more than 200 head of livestock, two apartments, two detached houses, and two cars by monthly verification with the relevant state administrative database, there is a provision to double-check when providing the service. The results are beginning to show. For example, in August this year, 8,475 citizens of 1,435 households were excluded from the service. 94 percent of these were herder households with more than 200 head of livestock. In addition, it became possible to purchase from grocery stores, markets, and wholesale centers that print VAT receipts or e-receipts instead of only contracted stores. In addition, it will be possible to use grocery stores, markets, and wholesale centers that print VAT receipts or e-receipts instead of purchasing from only contracted stores.
It means that citizens, business entities, and government organizations are cooperating.
In addition, the barcoding of 10 types of products was carried out in order to register the goods with bar codes and transfer them to electronic form, to encode each product individually, to register each user, to improve the control system, to make the data research and report accurate and fast. This work is the beginning of the barcoding of Mongolian food products.
Within the framework of social responsibility, the National Statistical Office, Information Technology Center of Custom, Taxation and Finance, State Bank and other commercial banks, Consumer System Suppliers Association, and GS-1 Mongolia NGO are working to start its implementation by August 2021. As part of the policy reform, the transition from the welfare beneficiary to the employed, regulations have been specified to support the employment of working-age people covered by this service.
In addition, if an individual refuses to get employed two or more times, mediated by an employment agency of aimag, the capital city, or district or labour exchange, the cash allowance for working-age citizen of the household will be deducted. It means if the citizen does not try, the government will stop providing regular welfare services.
In your case, the main policy to transit from welfare to work is being followed. There is a lot of criticism in society that there is no one willing to get employed due to the widespread provision of care. What are the plans to be implemented regarding the issue?
-Yes. Our sector is working within the framework of policy to transit from welfare to work. Earlier, in detail, I have mentioned the actions taken within the context of welfare. On the other hand, we are also focusing on increasing employment.
The following actions, such as to create a robust middle class by supporting population employment and increasing household income steadily, and to decrease poverty consistently by improving methodology to determine household living standards, targeting social welfare services, and promoting employment, are stipulated in the long-term development policy of Mongolia Vision-2050, and the Action Plan of the Government of Mongolia for 2020-2024.
First of all, we have created a legal environment to regulate the problems occurring during labour relations. The law was approved after a long period of discussion of three Parliament and five Government terms. The social partners actively participated in discussions on current issues. It was unique in that it worked together to reflect the views of all parties. The cooperation of all parties and stipulation of their views make the law more special.
For instance, the requests from miners to provide 14 days of work followed by 14 days of rest are reflected in the law. It is regulated that if the person works less than the aforementioned period, he/she will have the same number of days off. The legal environment for employment, such as the retention of annual leave, is also essential. Although the law goes into effect next year, we have been regularly continuing our other employment promotion activities. For example, there are employment promotion programs. The mediation process between job seekers and entities looking for employees is ongoing through the following website www.ejob.gov.mn. It is now possible to develop employment promotion policies and regulations based on research, analysis, and alternative estimates by developing and using a “dynamic model of the employment system”. Also, the “Participation” project to prepare young people for employment started its registration yesterday.
-What about welfare digitization?
-Digitization of Social welfare integrated system is launched on 26th of 2020, for example, six social welfare services, such as “Maternity allowance”, “Childcare allowance for children under 0-3 years old”, “Twin child allowance”, “Single parents allowance”, “Old-age endowment” and “Mother's glory” awards, are provided to citizens online.
In the first half of 2021, the system has virtually started providing child allowances, old-age pensions, disability pensions, dwarf pensions, and single-parent welfare pensions from the Social Welfare Fund.
As a result, a total of 11 types of welfare services are provided through the electronic system. Within this year, we are working to provide 21 services online by completing the electronic versions of another 10 types of services, including care benefits, discounts, and assistance for the elderly and PWDs. In the course of time, all the social welfare services will be gradually transferred to electronic form.
-Child allowance of MNT 100,000 is provided until the end of this year. What will happen to child allowance later on?
For the purpose of enhancing social protection and increasing the income of children, the elderly, PWDs, and those in need of social welfare support and assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, the child allowance is increased fivefold to MNT 100,000 from May 2020 until June 2021. Conforming with the pandemic situation, the child allowance with the increased amount is decided to be granted until the end of 2021 by the Government.
As of the first half of this year, 1,208.5 thousand children from 517.4 thousand households are covered by child allowances. Moreover, on May 13th of 2020, the Government session has decided to provide child allowance to the children of citizens of Mongolia residing abroad, and 6643 children living permanently abroad are receiving child allowances. According to international studies, these types of measures taken by the Government of Mongolia have has a positive impact on supporting the overall livelihood of citizens and diminishing poverty and inequality caused by the pandemic. For instance, the study by the ADB has found that if this measure were not taken on time, the poverty rate would have been increased to 36.7 percent, while the analysis of child allowance alone reduced the poverty rate to 24.7 percent. The social welfare pension has successfully become the income redistribution policy.
A study conducted with the collaboration of UNICEF found that covering 98 percent of the total households of Mongolia by child allowance has supported households with children during the pandemic to acquire their basic needs. Approximately 60 percent of these households have spent their child allowances on food necessity goods. 96.1 percent of beneficiaries of the child allowances and food vouchers have considered that the measure to increase the amount was a timely decision.
The Ministry has calculated the impact of providing child allowance of MNT 100,000 on household income, poverty, unemployment, state budget, and employment in a dynamic model, which showed an increase of real capita income for one person by an average of MNT 120,000 per year during 2021-2023, a decrease of poverty rate by 2 percent in 2021 and 1.3 percent in 2021, an increase of unemployment rate by 1.01 percent in 2022, and decrease of employment by about 17000 per year. Therefore, the Ministry considers that the child benefit amount of MNT 100,000 be reduced, and the previous amount of MNT 20,000 (set in 2012) be conformed in line with the inflation rate after the pandemic.
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