{"id":14109,"date":"2025-06-27T17:18:34","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T05:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=14109"},"modified":"2025-06-27T17:18:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T05:18:34","slug":"welfare-assistance-and-pension-increased-by-five-percent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=14109","title":{"rendered":"Welfare assistance and pension increased by five percent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All government pensioners and social welfare recipients are set to receive an additional five percent increase in their monthly allowances, on top of last year\u2019s 15 percent increase.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Professor Biman Prasad, says this move aims to ease the burden on citizens and help them better navigate current challenges.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Prasad adds that it\u2019s also a way the government is responding to cost-of-living challenges through targeted expenditure support measures.<\/p>\n<div class=\"google-auto-placed ap_container\"><ins class=\"adsbygoogle adsbygoogle-noablate\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2925900470816303\" data-adsbygoogle-status=\"done\" data-ad-status=\"filled\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"aswift_2_host\"><\/div>\n<p><\/ins><\/div>\n<p>He states that a total funding of $220 million is provided, an increase of $10 million.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe raised social welfare allowances, pensions and aftercare payments by 15 percent across the board and by 25 percent for those above the age of 70, receiving social pensions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The minister says the Aftercare Fund members will get a $0.8 million boost specifically for medical allowances.<\/p>\n<p>He adds that they are continuing with their public-private partnership, under the free medical scheme, with over 64 general and dental practitioners and medical lab providers who provide free medical services to our people.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Prasad adds that in the last two budgets, they made accessibility more targeted to those earning less than $30,000 per year and further extended this to all social welfare pensioners and kidney dialysis patients.<\/p>\n<div class=\"google-auto-placed ap_container\"><ins class=\"adsbygoogle adsbygoogle-noablate\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2925900470816303\" data-adsbygoogle-status=\"done\" data-ad-status=\"unfilled\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"aswift_3_host\"><\/div>\n<p><\/ins><\/div>\n<p>He adds that so far, they have paid $26 million.<\/p>\n<p>However, this will be further reviewed in the financial year to reduce abuse in the system.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Prasad adds that it is a budget that increases support for social welfare, agriculture, health, and education.<\/p>\n<p>~VIA FBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All government pensioners and social welfare recipients are set to receive an additional five percent increase in their monthly allowances, on top of last year\u2019s 15 percent increase. &nbsp; Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Professor Biman Prasad, says this move aims to ease the burden on citizens and help them better navigate current [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,175,222,208,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-fiji-news","category-latest-news","category-lifestyle","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14111,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14109\/revisions\/14111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}