JEDDAH — A total of 107,000 ineligible recipients of social security assistance have been identified only 24 hours after the Ministry of Social Affairs was electronically linked to the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI). The ministry immediately stopped paying them social security and promised to claim the money back. The ministry monthly pays about SR2.4 billion in social security to about 910,000 Saudi men and women covered by the system. Of this amount, about SR1.4 billion are paid to them in monthly stipends and about SR1 billion paid to settle their electricity bills, supply them with food and support productive families. Citizens who have been illegally receiving the assistance accounted for about 10 percent of all recipients. The ministry said a number of ineligible recipients were private sector employees on good incomes, businessmen, owners of land and other valuable properties. Some of them also had commercial registrations and their own real estate units. The ministry said some of the recipients had died. According to sources close to the ministry, the monthly salaries paid to ineligible recipients amounted to SR300 million but it was not known for how long they had been receiving the money. The ministry's undersecretary Mohammed Al-Okala said the government department is currently studying ways to get the money back and take the recipients to court. He said as many as 69,261 recipients were immediately dropped from the list of beneficiaries while 38,121 cases were under scrutiny. Lawyer Majed Garoub said this was a crime punishable by law and added that cases of embezzling public funds were not uncommon. “These people have illegally taken the Zakat money that they do not deserve and as such should be brought to justice,” he said. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Asheikh said social security money has come from Zakat resources assigned for the poor and needy only. “The ineligible recipients have taken haram (forbidden in Islam) money and have to be questioned for this,” he added. He asked Muslims to accept donations only if they are really in need of them.
