The birth and deployment of the Minimum Vital Income (IMV), the benefit launched by the Government to reach 850,000 households, is experiencing as many technical as political difficulties. Faced with pressure from Pablo Iglesias, vice president and minister of social affairs, to make this measure effective, Jose Luis Escriva, head of Social Security, has asked the media to omit messages other than his own.
“On IMV matters, listen to us. They will have much more accurate information because today there is a lot of noise” Escriva assured during the presentation of the budgets of the Ministry of Social Security for 2021.
The IMV was launched last summer after a strong tension between both members of the Government over the terms of its launch. Subsequent development has been very problematic, as Social Security has not covered the initial objectives, falling short of its commitments in terms of the number of recognized beneficiaries. Escriva promised at the beginning of the month in Congress to solve the bottlenecks in the management of the benefit and accelerate the registrations for these households already this quarter.
Vice President Iglesias did not think it was enough. Last Tuesday, he suspended Escriva by qualifying as “unacceptable that the IMV is not arriving“, adding that he” as coordinator of social policies “in the Council of Ministers could not” accept that this important social right that we have created is not reaching the people “.
Now, in the opinion of the minister who is recognized as the most technical and independent character in the Government, Iglesias’s criterion in relation to the point of the IMV seems to him to confuse to the media more so that it helps them understand the difficulties and benefits of the benefit, which today reaches 400,000 people and 180,000 households, well below its initial targets.
Escriva has defended on several occasions the results of Social Security by underlining the “improper effort” of the organism in the implementation of the IMV, solving on the fly the bottlenecks that have arisen. Also marking the territory of its competences against those of Churches. The competences of Social Affairs have to do, according to the minister at the beginning of this week, with “the supervision of what autonomous communities and municipalities do in the field of social assistance”, precisely a point where he pointed out that “some of the transitory problems” are emerging.
With the IMV as a matter of greatest tension in its relations with Iglesias, the largest project that Escrivá faces next year is the rebalancing of the agency’s accounts, which this year will receive 31,000 million euros in transfers from the State in addition to a credit of 13,800 million to meet its obligations and maintain financial balance.
In 2021 the transfer to the State of the so-called improper expenses assumed by Social Security begins. According to the minister, “of the more than 20,000 million euros identified as improper expenses, 14,000 million are covered this year.” With this, he has assured that “he hopes to give certainty to current and future pensioners.
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