We announced to you, in our edition N ° 5487 of Monday January 17, 2021, that the operation of financial subsidies to poor and vulnerable households still held and even that the payment of said subsidies could begin on Monday January 18, 2021. Well, as is ‘he had promised, the Government of Mali proceeded, this Monday, January 18, 2021 at the town hall of commune I of the district of Bamako, to launch the payment operations of the “ Governmental Program of Emergency Monetary Transfers” (PGTMU), intended for poor and vulnerable households as part of response measures to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The least we can say is that Malians will be particularly interested in the PGTMU insofar as it is common knowledge that, due to the landlocked situation and also the low rate of industrialization of their country, Malian populations, both urban and rural, are seriously facing economic and financial difficulties that the COVID-19 pandemic has further accentuated.
To put it mildly, we would readily concede that since the appearance of COVID-19, under our skies, the public authorities, both those before the coup d’état and those after, have spared no effort to support pandemic response measures. We remember that before the putsch, the then Head of State, IBK, and the government decided to take certain social measures as a response to the adverse economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To this end, the President of the Republic, IBK, addressed the Nation on Friday April 10, 2020, to announce certain social measures in order to lessen the negative effect of this pandemic on the Malian economy. Among these social measures, the Head of State announced: “towards the most fragile layers, the following measures are taken:

• Coverage for the months of April and May 2020, of electricity and water bills for categories falling under the so-called social brackets, that is to say the most deprived.
• Exemption from Value Added Tax on electricity and water bills, of all consumers, for the months of April, May and June 2020 … “.

In addition to these response measures which directly affect the household economy, the Malian authorities had made major efforts as part of the national response policy to the COVID-19 pandemic. These efforts include the free distribution of food to poor populations; the making and distribution of masks as part of the “un malien, un masque” program.

We can easily see that, despite the difficult economic situation in the country and which has been made more precarious with the appearance of COVID-19, the Malian authorities have not skimped on the means of response, starting with awareness raising. populations with regard to the application and respect of barrier measures. We should therefore welcome the fact, despite the change of regime last August, that the new authorities have opted for continuity in the response program to the COVID-19 pandemic.

El Hadj Mamadou GABA
Source: Le Soir De Bamako