Saturday 19 / October / 2024
Muscat: The Social Protection Fund will begin receiving applications for the Family Income Support Benefit from all segments of society from Sunday.
Those who meet the eligibility criteria can register through the link on the Fund’s website.
The programme provides monthly financial support to families with lower income groups. The entitlement depends on the family’s income level and the ability of its members to earn.
The target benefit value is linked to the number of family members and the family’s gross income. The benefit aims to improve the living conditions of these families.
The family includes the husband, wife, and non-working children up to the age of 26, and non-working daughters who have not reached the age of 40 if they are unmarried or divorced and do not have children.
Applicants have been urged to provide documents and attach them to the electronic system when applying, which include the statement of all bank accounts for all eligible family members for 6 months, even if multiple for one person, to make sure they are eligible for the benefit before extracting the account statement.
Prisoners’ families must submit a copy of the court ruling or an official certificate of the ruling while abandoned families must provide an official document proving the abandonment status of the head of the household.
A divorced woman with children must provide an official document of custody and proof of alimony, if any. Applications submitted without attachments will not be accepted.
The Social Protection Law issued by the Royal Decree 52/2023, Article 39 states that to be eligible for the Family Income Support Benefit, following conditions must be met, which include the family must be residing in the Sultanate of Oman.
One of the family members is Omani, except the non-Omani widow of an Omani who does not have Omani children, provided that she resides in the Sultanate of Oman continuously after the death of her Omani husband, in the manner specified in the regulations.
The total family income must be less than the level specified under the provisions of Article 40 of this law.
The regulation specifies the controls for disbursing the family income support benefit, the categories and cases eligible for it, the cases in which it is suspended, and the conditions for resuming its disbursement.
Malek bin Salem Al-Harthi stated that the family income support benefit was disbursed as a first stage to some families holding social security cards, as the latest statistics issued by the Social Protection Fund indicate that the family income support benefit was disbursed to 12,732 beneficiary families, and the number of beneficiaries from the male category reached 7,063, while the number of females reached 5,669 until the end of September 2024.
He said that the average value of the benefit amounted to OMR135, while the highest value of the family support benefit was recorded at an amount of OMR398.
As for the indicators of beneficiaries of the family income support benefit in the first phase according to the governorates, the North Al Batinah Governorate came in first place, where the benefit was disbursed to 2,807 families, followed by the Muscat Governorate where the number of families reached 2,118, and 1,542 beneficiaries in the South Al Sharqiyah Governorate, while in the North Al Sharqiyah Governorate, the disbursement was made to 1,104 beneficiaries, and came in fifth place for the category of those who did not indicate their place of residence, as their number reached 1,039 beneficiaries.
In the South Al Batinah Governorate 906 beneficiaries were disbursed the benefits and in the Al Dhahirah Governorate 885 beneficiaries, in the Al Dakhiliyah Governorate 765 beneficiaries, and 587 beneficiaries in the Dhofar Governorate, while the Al Buraimi Governorate reached 490 beneficiaries, in the Musandam Governorate 239 beneficiaries.
The Director General of Entitlements at the Social Protection Fund confirmed that the family income support benefit came to replace the social security pension, which will result in achieving many results related to the sustainable development goals and the targets of Oman Vision 2024.
In addition, this contributes to completing the pillars of the social security system and the retirement system under a unified management, thus integrating coordination processes and better matching strategies, instead of what the process of merging the two systems will achieve in terms of bridging the gaps in the comprehensiveness of social protection and coverage and the possibility of achieving integration and interconnection between the retirement system and social assistance in a way that ensures the efficiency of the system from a financial standpoint, providing a decent standard of living and providing advance protection.
