Interim Labour and Welfare Minister Rasela Mizrahi informed today that 8.500 requests for funding submitted by sick or disabled people to fund home care were blocked by the Ministry. Reviewing and approving such requests is one of the key functions of this department, as it’s necessary to provide help to people who are not hospitalized but can’t take care of themselves.

We have the skill and the resources to do better. There are 8.500 such cases that are now stuck. This is one of the problems I will focus on in the coming period. We are also being informed that there is widespread abuse here, as well as that people who are entitled to such assistance were being denied and rejected. We will respond to these complaints, Mizrahi said.

Mizrahi was appointed to the caretaker Government by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, with the task to make sure the department is not being abused for pre-election purposes by the ruling SDSM party. Approving financial assistance without merit or withholding and blackmailing people with assistance are typical ways this Ministry is used to push voters to support the ruling party. The previous Minister, Mila Carovska, was named Deputy Prime Minister by Oliver Spasovski, and is now charged with economic development.

Mizrahi also said that the Ministry was hugely over-representing the numbers of pre-school children who enroll in pre-K education and kindergarten. “We heard promises that their numbers will grew by 50 percent and it was recently reported that it grew by as much as 100 percent. The realistic numbers are far lower, and this is just another indication of how this Ministry was operating. Now, from a Ministry of problems, we will become a Ministry for solutions”, Mizrahi said.

The Ministry issued a press release to deny the comments of its interim Minister. According to the press release, the approval process for home care as being streamlined and was made easier for the applicants. The Ministry claims that the newly formed commissions had until February to respond to all the requests that are now piled up.