The window for appealing against the revised Aswesuma beneficiary list has been extended by four days to 15 November, and submissions in the final stretch are being accepted only online.

The period was originally due to close on Wednesday, 11 November. Hiru News reported on that day that the Welfare Benefits Board had decided to extend it to the 15th, citing requests made at divisional secretariat level.

The Island’s account adds the mechanism: appeals and objections could be lodged in person at the relevant Divisional Secretariat offices up to 11 November, while anything submitted between 12 and 15 November is accepted exclusively through the online system. Applicants can get technical help from the welfare benefits information unit at their own divisional secretariat, and the 1924 hotline carries further information in both accounts.

The counts do not agree

The two filings give materially different figures, and neither reconciles with the other.

The Island reports 105,233 appeals submitted by Aswesuma applicants, alongside 1,220 objections lodged by applicants against other applicants, 173 objections submitted by Divisional Secretaries against applicants, and 5,426 public objections. It adds that 2,981 applications have been entered into the system by Divisional Secretariat offices.

Hiru, filing on 11 November, put the total number of appeals entered into the system at 143,805, with 6,478 public objections.

The gap is not explained by either report. Hiru’s figure is described as the total systematised appeals, which may be a wider basket than The Island’s “appeals submitted by applicants” — but summing all of The Island’s categories still reaches only about 115,000, short of Hiru’s 143,805. The more likely explanation is that the two are snapshots from different moments in a window that was still open, though the direction is counter-intuitive: the later-published account carries the lower count.

This desk is not able to say which figure is current, and is not treating either as the authoritative total. Readers should note the date attached to each.

The two accounts also differ slightly on who asked for the extension. Hiru attributes it to requests made at divisional secretariat level; The Island describes requests received from the general public through Divisional Secretariat offices. The Island attributes its account to unnamed “Government sources”; Hiru attributes the decision to the Welfare Benefits Board itself.

What this changes

This supersedes the 11 November deadline reported in this desk’s earlier coverage, Aswesuma appeals close on 11 November. That report set out the underlying position: around 991,800 people qualified under the revised list, with 265,315 earlier beneficiaries continuing to receive payments and a further list covering roughly 700,000 people still pending approval.

The appeals process follows the cancellation of benefits for a large body of existing recipients after the first-phase information update, and the extension gives those affected four additional days — but only through a channel that requires internet access.

Not reported

Neither filing says how many of the appeals lodged so far have been decided, or when decisions will be communicated. Neither states whether the pending second list is affected by the extension, nor whether the payment timetable moves with it. Neither addresses what recourse exists for applicants without the connectivity or documentation to use the online-only channel in the final four days, and neither gives a breakdown of appeals by district or divisional secretariat.

No figure is given for how many of the roughly 1.39 million applications previously reported as rejected have generated an appeal.