JEDDAH — Around 80,000 out of 107,000 ineligible social security recipients have corrected their status, according to a source in the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI).
The source said the Ministry of Social Affairs had shared its database with the organization which scanned the information of all of the organization's clients.
“A total of 107,000 clients were ineligible to receive social insurance. It has been two months since these accounts have been dropped from the system. The organization has re-enrolled 80 percent of them with compensation for the past two months after they have corrected their status,” the source told Al-Madinah newspaper.
The source added the main reason for the discrepancy was that most of the ineligible recipients were victims of fake Saudization.
“Many of them were hired by private companies to achieve Saudization targets in return of a small salary of up to SR1,500 and what they in fact did was stay at home. They had to resign from the companies to receive social insurance. Some of the women have remarried after being a divorcee or a widow and have not updated their social status and others had an unused business license, which needed to be canceled,” said the source.
The head of the ministry's Social Insurance Department, Mohammad Al-Aqla said the ministry gives out around SR2.5 billion a month in social security payments.
“The social insurance money comes from charity and Zakat. There are around 950,000 recipients. The money should go to those who are genuinely in need of it. We cannot tolerate fraudsters who forge documents to get the money meant for the needy,” said Al-Aqla.
He added society should know better and each individual should respect the rules.
“Not all of the beneficiaries who were made ineligible had malicious intentions. Many of them were unaware of the regulations. Thanks to advanced technology used by the ministry and GOSI, we were able to eliminate fraud and ensure fairness,” said Al-Aqla.
