Almost 100 thousand displaced persons have lost access to their pensions because of unwarranted restrictions from April to June 2018. This was stated during a briefing in Kyiv today by head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine Fiona Fraser, - Gordon reports.
She added that the UN welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court of Ukraine of September 4, which agreed that the practice of refusing by the Pension Fund branches to pay pensions to temporarily displaced persons is illegal.
"At the same time, we once again state that the entire procedure should be changed. The right to a pension cannot be related to registration in the status of temporarily displaced persons", – Fraser said.
As previously reported, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted resolution No.365 on the procedure for monitoring social payments for internally displaced persons in June 2016. According to this document, the social protection agencies must visit every family of IDPs at least once every six months and check whether they really live at the address indicated. Additional checks may be carried out by units of the MIA, National Police, SBU, State Migration Service, State Financial Inspectorate, State Audit Service and Pension Fund.
Radio Liberty notes that if the working group does not find the displaced person at home, a complicated mechanism of his/her identification is launched. He/she must appear in the social protection agencies as soon as possible, otherwise the payments will be canceled, and it will be difficult to restore them. As reported in the Ministry of Social Policy, as of March, 530 IDPs received pensions in Ukraine.