The House of People’s Representatives (ARP) adopted, on Tuesday, a bill relating to a credit agreement of $300 million (817 million dinars), granted by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), to finance the COVID-19 Social Protection Emergency Response Support Project for Tunisia.
This programme takes effect from May 1, 2021, until March 2024 and has three main components.
The first component is to fund exceptional and permanent assistance to poor and low-income families with a budget of USD 245 million.
This involves allocating exceptional aid worth $100 million to poor and low-income families at a rate of 300 dinars per low-income or precarious household and 180 dinars for poor families.
$120 million will be used to finance permanent assistance under the social security programme (AMEN), which is usually taken from the state budget.
In addition, $25 million will be used to fund additional permanent assistance to increase the number of beneficiaries from 260,000 to 310,000 by the end of the project in March 2024.
Besides, the second component consists of $32 million for vulnerable children under five years of age to cover their health and education needs through a new family allowance programme, while the third component ($22.25 million) will be used to finance essential technical activities for the implementation
of the social security programme (AMEN).
The credit agreement is repayable over 19 years with a grace period of 4.5 years.

Source: TAP News Agency