Revenues of the Palestinian Maintenance Fund Reach 1.77 Million Shekels
Palestine Economy Portal
Translate by Tamara Barakat
The Board of Directors at the Palestinian Maintenance Fund ( PMF) approved its 2015 financial and administrative report and its 2016 executive plan and budget in its meeting that was held on 18/01/2016.
The report showed a financial deficit that exceeds over 5 million shekels, resulting from the unpaid debts that are due onto the Fund’s beneficiaries. The General Manager of the PMF, Fatmeh Moaqet, explained that the number of beneficiaries of the Fund reached 13 thousand individuals last year, and the Fund spent 1.4 million shekels on its beneficiaries, in six installments.
She said that the average spending on each file was 889 shekels, and 359 shekels on the individual. The highest spending percentage was on child maintenance, reaching 49.5%, followed by spousal maintenance that reached 32%.
The main financial resources of the PMF, according to its founding law, are derived from the fees of marriage contracts and divorce deeds, which formed around 86% of the Fund’s overall revenues last year. They formed 1.77 million shekels that were received from 25 Sharia Courts in the West Bank.
The collected bills reached 338 thousand shekels, which formed 24% of the spent money during that year. The collected bills are money paid by the Fund for those on whom a case is filed at court, and the Fund later retains this money from the winner of the case. This money is disbursed on the expenses of divorce and child maintenance.
The Chair of the Board of Directors, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, said that the most important achievement of the Fund was that the Palestinian legislature responded to the Fund’s needs during the last quarter of 2015 and decreed a law demanding the increase in the Fund’s financial resources, which will positively reflect on the Fund’s beneficiaries who are truly in need of maintenance.
He emphasized the importance of searching for mechanisms to increase the scope of the Fund’s beneficiaries in order to be able to help the people in the Gaza Strip in a manner consistent with the law.
