Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH — The Social Affairs Ministry will set up an electronic link with the Ministry of Education early next month to monitor whether university students are eligible for the financial assistance it has been extending to them, Al-Madina reported. Masaad Al-Solaiman, the director of the ministry's IT department, said this electronic link will enable the ministry to assess the eligibility of the dependents of citizens covered by social security assistance for the monthly salaries they regularly receive. He said there are 1.8 million dependents of citizens eligible for social security assistance. However, some of the dependents are registered with the ministry as university students when in fact they are not. “They have either graduated, employed or dropped out but they are still on our payroll,” he said. He expected the electronic vetting to reveal that some of the male dependents have crossed the eligible age of 26 and that some of the female students have either got married or have found work. “These categories of students are no longer eligible for our financial assistance and should not be paid,” he said. The General Organization of Social Insurance uncovered major discrepancies in the distribution of social security benefits after the ministry's database was linked to its network. Al-Solaiman said for a long time the ministry was using the data about the general students from the “Noor” educational program that turned out to be inaccurate. He said last year 150 students studying in private schools on their own expense were cut from the list of eligible citizens. “We started the vetting system as early as 2006 but the insufficiency of the accurate data was a hurdle for us,” he said. Ministry sources said the electronic link is currently being made with about 30 ministries and government departments to ensure that the data about the eligible citizens is accurate. The sources said the recent discovery that more than 107,000 citizens were ineligible was made possible by the electronic link with seven government organizations consisting of the ministries of justice, labor, commerce and civil service, the Human Resources Development Fund and the Department of Zakat and Income. The sources estimated the funds paid monthly to 950,000 eligible poor and needy Saudis to be about SR2.5 billion. They said ineligible beneficiaries were paid about SR170 million every month. According to the sources, the social security money comes from Zakat funds and the ministry's own budget.
