Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Sashi Kiran told Parliament today that a new digital system is set to modernise and strengthen the delivery of Fiji’s key social assistance programs, following years of recurring audit issues and delays.
Kiran said an extensive technical review of Fiji’s six major social assistance schemes—completed in May 2023 and approved by Cabinet—had revealed significant gaps in data management, system integration and digital security.
“In addition to the recurring audit issues highlighted and reported every year on the management and delay of the delivery of social protection programs, and as an outcome of a fiduciary assessment of Fiji’s Social Assistance Schemes, the Australian Government provided the Government of Fiji with $2.16 million to support the ministry’s social protection results in late 2022,” she said.
Working in partnership with DFAT through the flagship Partnerships for Social Protection Program (P4SP), the ministry engaged specialised roles and technical experts to carry out the detailed review.
“Following extensive consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, including beneficiaries of social assistance schemes themselves, the technical review report was completed in May 2023 and subsequently approved by Cabinet,” Kiran said.
“The review provided us with recommendations for key operational and policy reforms to strengthen the efficiency and effectiveness of social assistance schemes.”
One of the core recommendations was the development of an Integrated Beneficiary Management System (IBMS). However, Kiran said the immediate need was addressing the ministry’s outdated and vulnerable data systems.
“While this comprehensive IBMS solution will represent an impressive achievement for Fiji, the technical review identified that the more immediate gap was in the area of data and data management—the digitalization of beneficiary data and data protection—which all needed urgent priority attention,” she said.
“Some of the ministry’s online systems crashed in 2020 and some processes were reverted to manual processes.”
To address this, Kiran said the ministry prioritised the development of an interim IT solution in 2024—the Social Protection Management Information System (SPMIS).
“The SPMIS is the first stage, involving the establishment of an interim system to digitise core beneficiary information and support the ministry’s priority operational needs,” she told Parliament.
“I’m pleased to inform Parliament that the interim program has now been successfully built, tested and handed over to our ministry on the secure Government server, aligned with national standards for data security and digital governance.”
The system is already integrated with the Ministry of Justice’s Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) database through the Digital Exchange Platform (DXP).
Kiran said national user training is currently underway.
“Our reform teams, including officials from our ministry, Ministry of Finance and IT teams, are conducting national user training across all 21 district welfare offices, ensuring frontline staff are fully trained to operate the system.”
She confirmed that once digitisation and uploading of all beneficiary records is completed—which is now in its final stages—the interim SPMIS will become fully operational by next month.
Kiran said the reforms will result in faster service delivery, improved transparency and better protection of vulnerable groups who rely on government social assistance.
