The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare wants to define in a new way the work of the commissions that determine the status of persons with disabilities and the percentage of disability, as well as the method of determining and limiting the amount of subsidies for employers who employ persons with disabilities, in order to prevent misuse of the fund for these purposes worth over 20 million euros, "Vijesti" learns.
Yesterday, the Ministry announced on its website that it is launching the procedure for amendments to the Law on Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities, which is why they invite non-governmental organizations and other interested parties to submit their proposals and suggestions within 15 days.
"Vijesti" wrote about this issue several times last year. Due to the large increase in the number of people with disabilities requesting subsidies, as well as the high wages they were registered for, the Fund for Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities went bankrupt last year in May because it paid out 13 million euros for subsidies for the employment of persons with disabilities, while his income was nine million. The government then had to pay another 13 million euros to the Fund from the budget reserve. The money missing from this Fund, which functions within the Employment Agency, is paid from the budget, because the state is the guarantor of these payments.
The President of the Management Board of the Employment Agency, Dejan Vojvodić, and the head of this Fund, Denis Martinović, repeatedly warned about the emptying of this fund and suspicions of abuses, which is why they asked the ministry to amend the law.
In the current Law, there is no limit to the amount of subsidy or salary to which an employer can register a person with a disability, and depending on the degree of disability, the state subsidizes up to 75 percent of that salary. So there were cases of people with earnings over eight thousand euros applying for subsidies. According to the current Law, the Institute and the Fund do not have the possibility to check whether that amount of salary is actually earned and on the basis of which it was calculated, but only has to pay the requested subsidy.
"Vijesti" also wrote about the large disproportion of people with disabilities according to the municipalities, because in the application of the Institute for the territory of the municipality of Rožaje, there are two thousand people who have been recognized with this status, while in Kotor there are 35 of them for the same number of inhabitants. Berane had 2.188 people last year. with disabilities, and Podgorica is seven times larger, a total of 700.
In yesterday's invitation from the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, it is explained what this law refers to and what the goal of its changes is.
"The preparation of amendments to the Law on Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities is being approached due to the need to improve the current legal solutions, especially in the part of the provisions related to the competence for education of first-level commissions for professional rehabilitation, the bearers of the evaluation of the quality of the implementation of professional rehabilitation measures and activities, subsidies for employers who employ persons with disabilities, as well as the social inclusion program", said the department headed by Minister Naida Nišić.
20 million is planned for this year, but there will be more
For the payment of subsidies for the employment of people with disabilities, the budget for this year provides 20 million euros, but their number is still growing, it is possible that even that amount will not be enough.
The same Ministry in the previous Government planned changes to this Law, but they were prevented from doing so by the parliamentary blockade and the political crisis.
In April of last year, this department told "Vijesta" that they had received information from the Employment Office about cases of subsidy payments for suspiciously high earnings. At that time, they announced changes to the Law on Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities, as well as to the Law on the Single Body of Expertise.
In the meantime, an additional 13 million euros were allocated from the budget for the payment of these fees.
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