Registration in the Citizen's Fund, under which nationals will get financial support from the government, is not obligatory, an official source at the Ministry of Labor and Social Development has said. "Citizens will not be obliged to register in the fund. It is their own business if they do not want to receive government's support," he said. The unidentified source told local daily Al-Madina on Monday that citizens with commercial licenses will not be exempted from registering. "It is the monthly income of the family which is the decisive factor in the registration with the fund," he explained. He said the more than 830,000 families, consisting of about 2.5 million individuals, who are receiving social security assistance will automatically be registered in the fund. The registration in the fund will start early February. The ministry has opened as many as 444 offices and centers all over the Kingdom to register citizens who can not do this electronically. Asked how will the family's income be calculated in case both the husband and the wife are working, he said the mechanism for this has not yet been formulated. "We will announce these policies very soon," he added. "The government is keen to support the citizens of low and medium income so as to be able to cope with the rising cost of living especially when subsides on energy and water are slashed," he said. He said the amounts to be paid to the citizens from the fund will be announced after the subsidy is canceled from fuel sometimes this year. "There will be additional amounts to be paid when the subsidy on water prices are stopped in 2019," he added. The fund has divided the citizens into five categories according to their income. The first category are the citizens with monthly income reaching SR8,700, the second are people receiving SR12,000 or less, the third are the citizens with monthly income of SR15,000, the fourth are those whose income is SR20,000. The fifth category which is not entitled to receive payments from the fund are the citizens whose monthly income exceeds SR20,000.
