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RED CROSS

Red Cross set to resume Sudanese aid work

The Geneva-based Red Cross said on Monday that Sudan had ended a ban on its aid operations, imposed by the government in February.

Red Cross set to resume Sudanese aid work
Photo: Julius Kusuma

In a statement, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Khartoum had opted to lift the suspension even though discussions on the issue had not yet wrapped up.
   
"The lifting of the suspension while the dialogue continues is a positive step," said Jean-Christophe Sandoz, head of the ICRC delegation in Sudan.
   
"It will allow us to resume our humanitarian work and our aid will again reach conflict- and violence-affected people. This is good news," he said.
   
Sudan called a halt to ICRC operations on February 1, accusing the neutral, Swiss-based aid organization of violating guidelines for working in the war-torn country.
   
Specifically, Khartoum said that the ICRC had failed in some cases to work via the Sudanese Red Crescent Society.
   
The ICRC had only cited "technical issues" as the reason for the suspension.
   
The restriction came after a string of moves against other foreign aid organizations in the country, where rebels are fighting the government in Darfur, the Kordofan region and Blue Nile state.
   
"Our priority is to have our staff back on the ground as quickly as possible," said Sandoz.
   
"As the humanitarian situation has changed since February, we will start by carrying out assessments of needs in conflict areas. We will then decide on what can be done, and re-adapt our capacity accordingly," he added.
   
The ICRC has been working in Sudan since 1978.
   
In 2003, it extended its operations to Darfur, where it helps people suffering the effects of armed conflict and other violence.
   
As a neutral intermediary, the Red Cross has facilitated the handover and repatriation of numerous prisoners held by armed groups in the troubled Darfur region.
   
The agency has also provided health services, food aid, seeds, tools, hand pumps and other assistance which helped more than 1.5 million people in restive parts of the country last year.

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INCOME

Spain’s basic income scheme hits backlog dead-end

Three months after Spain rushed to launch a minimum basic income scheme to fight a spike in poverty due to the coronavirus pandemic, the programme is at a dead-end because of an avalanche of applications.

Spain's basic income scheme hits backlog dead-end
Red Cross volunteers bring food packages to elderly and low income people. Photo: Cesar Manso/AFP
The measure was a pledge made by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's leftwing coalition government, which took office in January, bringing together his Socialist party with far-left Podemos as the junior partner.
   
The scheme — approved in late May — aims to guarantee an income of 462 euros ($546) per month for an adult living alone, while for families, there would be an additional 139 euros per person, whether adult or child, up to a monthly maximum of 1,015 euros per home. It is expected to cost state coffers three billion euros ($3.5 billion) a year.
   
The government decided to bring forward the launch of the programme because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has hit Spain hard and devastated its economy, causing queues at food banks to swell.
   
Of the 750,000 applications which were filed since June 15 when the government started accepting requests, 143,000 — or 19 percent — have been analysed and 80,000 were approved, according to a social security statement issued on August 20.
 
 
'Months of waiting'
 
But Spain main civil servant's union, CSIF, paints a darker picture. “Nearly 99 percent of requests have not been processed,” a union spokesman, Jose Manuel Molina, told AFP.
   
The social security ministry has only really analysed 6,000 applications while 74,000 households that already receive financial aid were awarded the basic income automatically, he added.
   
For hundreds of thousands of other households, the wait is stressful. Marta Sanchez, a 42-year-old mother of two from the southern city of Seville, said she applied for the scheme on June 26 but has heard nothing since.
   
“That is two months of waiting already, when in theory this was a measure that was taken so no one ends up in the streets,” she added.
   
Sanchez lost her call centre job during Spain's virus lockdown while her husband lost his job as a driver. The couple has had to turn to the Red Cross for the first time for food.
   
“Thank God my mother and sister pay our water and electricity bills,” she said, adding their landlord, a relative, has turned a blind eye to the unpaid rent.
 
 
'Rushed everything'
 
A spokeswoman for the ministry acknowledged that the rhythm “was perhaps a bit slower than expected” but she said the government was working to “automate many procedures” so processing times should become faster from now on.
   
“The launch of a benefit is always difficult … and this situation is not an exception,” she added.
   
But Molina said this was a new situation, that was made worse by years of budget cuts to the public service which has lost 25 percent of its staff over the past decade.
   
“The problem is that they rushed everything, did it without training and a huge lack of staff,” he added.
   
The social security branch charged with the basic income scheme has only 1,500 civil servants, who also process most pension applications, Molina said.
   
These officials are facing an “avalanche” of requests, which already match the number of pension requests received in an entire year, he added.
   
About 500 temporary workers have been recruited as reinforcements but their assistance is limited because they do not have the status of civil servant, so they cannot officially approve requests for financial aid.
   
Demand is expected to increase. The government has said the measure was expected to benefit some 850,000 homes, affecting a total of 2.3 million people — 30 percent of whom were minors.
   
When the scheme was launched the government said all it would take is a simple online form, but this is a problem for many low-income families without computers and internet access, especially since the waiting time for an in-person meeting to apply is about two months, according to the CSIF union
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