Ministry of Community Development denies authenticity of statements on assistance to unemployed

The Ministry of Community Development denied the authenticity of statements reported by some media outlets, newspapers and social media accounts attributed to it after the participation of Hessa bint Essa Buhumaid, Minister of Community Development at the 10th session of the Federal National Council, FNC, which was held remotely yesterday at the first regular session of FNC’s 17th legislative session.

The ministry affirmed that the statements circulated were taken out of context, especially those related to the provision of aid to the unemployed categories, which came following the discussion of the federal law authorizing the disbursement of exceptional social assistances to those unemployed, for reasons beyond their control, in accordance with Article (7) of Social beneficiary Law for the year 2001.

The ministry also confirmed that the number of unemployed categories was reported by a member of the Federal National Council, a number that has not been confirmed by the ministry. The Ministry called on the media and involved social media accounts to examine their accuracy and objectivity, and adhere to their obligation to publish the correct information to the public.

In detail, the recent statements came during the 10th session of the Federal National Council of the first regular session of the 17th legislative term, which was held remotely on Tuesday. Adnan Hamad Mohammed Al Hammadi, member of the Federal National Council, asked a question to Hessa bint Essa Buhumaid, Minister of Community Development, saying "the Federal National Law No. (2) of 2001 concerning social beneficiary and exceptional social assistances to unemployed categories, why doesn’t the Ministry disburse these assistances to all entitled Emiratis? The Ministry's response was that the UAE was very keen to provide wellbeing life for all Emiratis and protect them socially, specifically Emiratis who are going through exceptional circumstances that prevented them from having wellbeing livelihoods for themselves and their families, taking into consideration, that these categories are unemployed for reasons beyond their own wills, thus providing them with exceptional social assistances temporarily until they join work.

In its response, the Ministry said that federal Law No. 2 of 2001 concerning social beneficiary had specified in Article (4) the categories to be entitled to social assistances, such as: widowers, elderly people, orphans, children of unknown parents and other categories stipulated in the law and those unemployed categories are not included yet Article (7) of the law allowed disbursement of exceptional social assistances to those unemployed for reasons out of their own wills and who do not have any source of income for six months. The Ministry also takes into consideration when receiving applications some factors such as financial cases, temporary disability, exposure to loss of trade, weakness or lack of a qualification.

The ministry's response to the question included a presentation about the exceptional social assistances for those unemployed categories for reasons out of their will; the social assistances have been disbursed to 3,245 cases since 2017.

The Ministry of Community Development is constantly sustainable and keen to simplify the procedures for obtaining the services to different categories of the community particularly social beneficiary, by developing integrated automated systems with different entities and speeding up case researches, procedures of those eligible for the social beneficiary in addition to studying the advanced case for support.

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