Social assistance needs institutional changes

Targeted social assistance to poor people is not effective , as well as gaining momentum by the pilot program of self-supporting this category of citizens.

This was discussed at the last presentation in the ISR Plaza of the Public Association Transparency Azerbaijan, with the financial support of the American Agency for International Development (USAID) monitoring the implementation of the outcome of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of civil society recommendations .

According to project coordinator Kanan Gasimov , there is institutional shift to minimize the communication targeted assistance recipients with officials - so that citizens receive payment cards in banks - operators , bypassing the local social security department , information on the transfer of funds received via SMS on a mobile phone. However, legal illiteracy of most people is the cause of voluntarism - under the guise of checking them during monitoring (September 2012 - September 2013) took up payment cards for ransom. This continued after 22 officials only in 2011-12 were dismissed from their posts and more than 100 were punished administratively .

"Hotline" of the ministry until unproductive due to the lack of effective control , as well as training for staff. As a consequence , there was a regulation of the Minister Salim Muslimov the publication of the new year with monthly reports. Creation of an informative virtual resource www.mlspp.gov.az, inaccessible to the public, could be considered as achievement, as there was nothing like that until 2012. There are also links to 12 e-services and appropriate legislative framework, while there are not conducted outreach activities with the purpose of access to information to the general mass of people - in spite of the application , there is nothing practical in Russian .

The pilot program to provide poor people with self-help was piloted in three districts ( Baku Nizami , Ismailly and Geychay ) and until the end of 2012 it was expanded to 281 families in 13 districts of the country. The performance indicator is 96 %, but the narrow range and low rate of spread of innovation retouches the efforts of the Ministry. - 17D-