The Myanmar government’s COVID-19 direct cash assistance to low income families, the fourth in a series, has been criticized and faced public street protests, prompting the authorities to open complaint centres.

Dagon Seikkan Township complaint centre deputy staff officer Myat Lay Thwe told Mizzima that these complaint centres receive many phone calls daily and that their staff were coordinating and intervening in these complaints.

Some people said that they could not contact some of these complaint centre numbers and their officials at the centres were receiving many phone calls.

The government has provided direct cash assistance to the families with low and irregular income for the fourth time and then there were many complaints from the people who did not get this assistance and who were not satisfied with the selection of beneficiaries of this assistance.

Complaints have risen to such a point that these had to be opened.

In her televised address to the nation on November 16, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi said that no one would be intentionally omitted in receiving cash assistance and those who did not get the assistance would be helped.

Township complaint centre official Myat Lay Thwe said that this cash assistance was previously intended for the lower strata families with irregular income but now the people who had difficulty in earning income during the COVID-19 pandemic could apply for the assistance along with recommendations from an administrator and a 100-household chief.

But she did not know when this fourth cash assistance programme would be provided again to the people who did not get the handouts this time.