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City leaders give gifts to poor people |
The launch of the Social Security Fund is a move to support people in difficulty during the Covid-19 pandemic and the post-Covid-19 pandemic era as well as concretize the spirit of the Eighth Central Conference which determined that social security must ensure flexibility and adapt to bad situations on a large scale without leaving no one behind.
In Vietnam, especially in Ho Chi Minh City, poor families and vulnerable populations continue to suffer the disproportionate impact of the post-Covid-19 pandemic while its consequences of external impacts have been predicted.
The concept of ‘poor households’ also needs to be approached at many levels such as poor families, near-poor families, families that have just escaped poverty but then falling back into poverty, and families at high risk of falling into poverty. Even in some areas where, during a certain period, there are no longer poor households, but vulnerable population groups still exist. If these groups are not protected and supported, they will easily fall into poverty.
Specifically, the group of informal workers is easily falling into poverty when the problem of formalizing informal labor has not been solved and the safety net cannot fully cover them.
Moreover, the most fundamental solution to escape poverty is to create jobs while the authorities must enhance training and retraining including vocational skills and the labor market must ensure enough orders and maintain market share. But this is the heaviest challenge in the current situation.
Therefore, more than ever the city needs to establish and operate a social security fund model that can accommodate most immigrants and informal workers in the country while still carrying out the goal of developing Ho Chi Minh City into a place comfortable and beneficial to live in that Secretary of the City Party Committee Nguyen Van Nen once mentioned to.
Clearly, the city needs to have a reserve financial flow both in the budget and social funds to respond to the above impacts with a framework for the type of impacts that need support, level of support, and eligibility conditions. The city must use technology to monitor and warn of natural disasters, epidemics or major shocks and digitize social security databases such as social assistance, poverty, near poverty, and labor.
Based on the Government’s Decree 93/2021/ND-CP on mobilization, receipt, distribution and use of voluntary contributions to support overcoming difficulties caused by natural disasters, epidemics and incidents and support patients with serious illnesses, the Ho Chi Minh City Social Security Fund is suitable for carrying out these goals.
A noteworthy point in mobilizing resources in the early stages of the fund launch is whether to ask for permission to transfer the existing money of the Center which was receiving, distributing and supporting essential goods to serve disadvantaged people due to the Covid-19 epidemic to immediately deploy some urgent subsidies.
In addition, it is necessary to establish clear and specific roles and responsibilities between the social security and natural disaster risk management system and other relevant departments and agencies.
The city will encourage businesses and philanthropists to contribute to the fund by awakening the tradition of kindness and mutual support but also set up a reserve budget. However, the fund managers must ensure openness, transparency, and effectiveness during the operation of the fund.
