Financial aid of SR2.4 billion to 170,902 disabled people has not been released as the Ministry of Social Affairs has yet to update its database of disabled people, according to an official from the Ministry of Social Affairs. The beneficiaries receive annual financial assistance, depending on their type of disability, said Nasser Al-Malik, head of the department of rehabilitation and care of the disabled at the ministry. The update of the database, which was supposed to have started 47 days ago at all the Kingdom's rehabilitation centers, will start within a month, he said. The process is meant to verify the condition of people's disability, whether there has been any improvement, and whether the beneficiary is still alive. Fingerprinting will be used to verify the identity of the disabled person to prevent any fraudulent claims. The amount of financial assistance provided is determined by a committee consisting of a physician, psychiatrist, and a social worker. The committee has the authority to decide to either increase or decrease the financial assistance based on the general health of the disabled person and condition of the disability, Al-Malik said. The annual amount for a disabled person ranges between SR4,000 and SR20,000. In 2009, the government paid over SR2.3 billion in financial benefits to the registered disabled, an increase of over SR529 million from 2008. Offices of the Ministry of Social Affairs in the Kingdom have been receiving many disabled people everyday wanting to update their information so that they can get their financial benefits. “They keep coming everyday to the social affairs offices ready with updated information, but we don't know what to tell them because we don't know ourselves on what day the update process will start,” said a regional social affairs official.
