Nearly 500,000 families should be removed from Samurdhi allowance – COPA

The Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) has stated that nearly 33% of the families currently receiving the Samurdhi allowance are those who should, in fact, not be entitled to this benefit.

This was disclosed when the COPA met in Parliament on 25 April in order to review the matters included in the reports of the Auditor General for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 and the current performance of the Department of Samurdhi Development.

Accordingly, it was revealed that while 33% of those who receive the Samurdhi allowance are those unentitled to it, a similar percentage of those who should be entitled to the allowance are not.

The relevant information was gathered in a survey conducted covering the entire island from 2015 to 2017, in which it was found out that that a total of 449,979 families should be removed from the Samurdhi subsidy.

Officials of the National Audit Office also claimed that an informality had been observed in the selection of Samurdhi beneficiaries.

It was further disclosed that some of the Samurdhi beneficiaries who received the monthly benefits remitted to the Prajamula Banks, kept them in their bank accounts for a long period of time and according to the surveys, the amount kept in the savings accounts of 2433 beneficiaries in 41 domains of 10 Prajamula Banks amounted to Rs. 59,951,537.