GIFF JOHNSON
The May distribution of Enra funds will happen next week, according to the Marshall Islands Social Security Administration, which handles the quarterly payments.
The bigger news is that next week’s payment will be larger than the March distribution due to President Hilda Heine’s advocacy to increase money going out to citizens during a difficult time of skyrocketing fuel, food and other costs.
The Enra (or universal basic income payment) third and fourth quarter payments are being supplemented by World Bank funding amounting to $3.2 million. This is expected to increase the individual payments from about $160 to $200, returning the level to the amount of the initial Enra payment last November.
MISSA now has over 41,000 people on its list of citizens eligible for Enra, up slightly from the 40,000 of the March payment.
The increase for the next two quarterly payments “was pushed by the President to provide necessary relief to help people absorb the higher costs,” said Finance Minister David Paul. The plan to supplement the next two quarterly payments with additional World Bank grant funding has already been approved by the World Bank and President Heine and is going for formal Cabinet endorsement this week, he said.
“Finance said the funds will arrive early next week,” MISSA Administrator Bryan Edejer told the Journal Tuesday. “So, the distribution will happen next week instead of this week.”
This is the third quarterly distribution since the first one last November. By issuing this payment at the end of May, it gets the Enra distribution system back onto the every-three-month schedule initiated with the November 2025 payment.
This month’s Enra payment was expected to be about $160 per person for over 41,000 Marshallese in the country. But the addition of $1.6 million from the World Bank for this quarter is expected to bump the payment to about $200 per person.
The quarterly amount provided to MISSA from the Compact trust fund is $6.6 million. This will remain the same for the last quarter payment, in late August, and now be supplemented by another $1.6 million from the World Bank.
The budget for fiscal year 2027, which starts October 1, is proposing a $6 million increase in funds for the Enra program, to boost the annual level to $32.5 million for FY2027, according to Paul.
This level of appropriation will maintain the quarterly payments at about the $200 per person level, he said.