Poor people waiting for support

Thanh lost his job around the beginning of May 2021, not long after the fourth outbreak broke out. At the same time, his wife also had to take a break because the factory was not qualified to organize “three on-site” production. Difficulties piled up when the whole family of four was infected with Covid-19. In order to stay in the city, he and his wife cut their spending and borrowed nearly ten million dong from relatives.

The hostel where he lives has more than 100 rooms. During the three-month city gap, the homeowner is exempted for one month completely, the remaining two months “for the debt to be paid when it is available”.

In mid-February, Mr. Thanh was officially accepted by a garment company to work. At the same time, he watched TV and learned that there was a policy to help tenants. By the end of March, the support package was approved, expected to disburse VND 6,600 billion for 3.4 million workers working in industrial parks, export processing zones and economic zones in 24 provinces and cities in four key economic regions. point. The whole procedure is shortened in 11 days. Money is transferred to employee’s account or directly in case there is no account.

If both Mr and Mrs. Thanh get help, the amount received is three million dong, just enough to pay for two months’ outstanding house rent. However, they waited forever and did not see anyone instructing them to apply for benefits. Afraid that this would be a story “on TV to receive”, he and his wife decided to advance their salary to the innkeeper, as if they had never heard of the housing subsidy package to avoid waiting.

But last week, the factory’s Human Resources department called him to fill out an application for rent assistance after the city government had a plan to implement it. Receiving a stack of papers from the manager, Mr. Thanh intends to complete the procedure soon, because “better late than never”, even though he has passed the feeling of anticipation like three months ago, when he first heard the news on TV – when he had no place to turn but the landlady.

Not everyone is lucky enough to meet a good innkeeper like Mr. Thanh’s family. Last year, when the epidemic broke out, many laborers lost their jobs, did not have any savings, and the heavy burden of accommodation forced them to leave the city.

According to the General Statistics Office, about 2.2 million people returned home due to the long-lasting fourth wave of the epidemic, of which about 447,000 people returned from Hanoi, 524,000 people returned from Ho Chi Minh City; 600,000 people returned from southern provinces and more than 676,000 people from other localities.

From that situation, the rental support package for workers was born with the goal of helping businesses retain workers, attracting repatriates back to working cities, and creating conditions for production to recover. after the pandemic. Employees have an extra expense to cover after the difficulties piled up because of Covid-19.

But reality is not as expected. According to data from the Employment Department (Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs), as of May 16, no workers have received any money, all just stopped at the step of issuing the plan or the fastest. is to receive applications. In Ho Chi Minh City, it is expected that nearly 1.2 million foreign workers and are living in Ho Chi Minh City will be supported with rent. By the afternoon of May 23, Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance had confirmed for more than 21,000 cases, accounting for nearly 2%; but no money yet.

Not only the rental support package, a series of other support packages fall into the same situation. In which, it is necessary to mention the policy of supporting training and maintaining jobs for laborers with an estimated budget of 4,500 billion VND, but after 10 months, only 17.1 billion VND has been disbursed; loans to restore production and business spent 297 billion (about 3%); loan to pay salary to stop disbursing 262 billion dong (3.5%)… In Ho Chi Minh City, there are still more than one million people waiting for the third support package issued since September last year with the goal of helping people facing difficulties due to the epidemic, each case receives one million dong…

There are many reasons for delayed support policy. For example, with the rental support package, the agencies in charge cited a lack of human resources, overcrowding, unconfirmed innkeepers or unbalanced local budgets…

The Government has just sent a telegram requesting to complete the rental support package in August, the time to receive applications is until the end of August 15. Thus, it is likely that many people will receive the money in the middle of the third quarter of this year, when their life and work are almost okay.

The amount of support 1.5-3 million VND is not much but it will still be worthy of “a package” when given at the right time when people are “hungry”. But when help does not come in time, the good goal set at the beginning will more or less lose its meaning.

Le Tuyet