The authorities continues to be discussing the way it will bankroll the implementation of the Marcos administration’s meals stamps program, which might require about P40 billion, a prime official of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) stated Saturday.
DSWD Undersecretary Eduardo Punay stated the estimated P40-billion funds requirement for the meals stamps program will cowl the P3,000 monthly allowance of focused a million poor households.
“Phasing po siya and 300,000 families pa lang for first year so around 1/3 pa lang [na] requirement for first year around P12 billion,” Punay stated in a message to reporters.
“Bale phasing po siya for three years: first year: 300,000, second year: plus 300,000, third year: plus 400,000. [The] total is one million,” he added.
Dubbed as “Walang Gutom 2027: Food Stamp Program,” the mission goals to help focused households to handle involuntary starvation within the nation.
The DSWD earlier stated it will present “electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards” that will probably be loaded with meals credit amounting to P3,000 monthly to buy a choose record of meals commodities from the DSWD registered or accredited native retailers.
“We will still have discussion with the economic team how to, you know, source…because of the limited resources that we have,” Punay stated on the Saturday News Forum in Quezon City.
However, the DSWD official stated that the federal government can also be in discussions with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank, each of which provided to fund this system.
“We have received offers for funding,” Punay stated.
For the six-month pilot run of the mission that will run within the second half of the yr, Punay stated the ADB prolonged $3 million.
DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian, final month, stated the meals stamps program itself might begin within the first quarter of 2024.
Punay reiterated that “under discussions pa po kung paano popondohan next year (how it will be funded next year is still under discussions).”
The DSWD official stated the federal government might embrace it in subsequent yr’s nationwide funds.
Punay added that to date this system continues to be within the design stage.
The program, he stated, targets to supply an allowance to not less than a million “food poor” households or these incomes lower than P8,000 in a month to buy a choose record of meals objects from accredited native retailers. — DVM/VBL, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
