PALIKIR, Pohnpei—The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program is for individuals whose employment or self-employment was interrupted as a direct result of the COVID-19 public health emergency. For FSM, where do not have a COVID-19 case, these individuals need to be directly impacted by the border closure or other emergency measures such as a State imposed curfew or quarantining. It does not cover individuals who are unemployed for non-COVID-19 reasons such as the downturn in the economy or those who continue to receive regular income.
The Office of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (OPUA) in FSM continues to require individuals to submit proof of identification and documentation for employment or self-employment. Individuals are also required to submit Weekly Payment Requests on a bi-weekly basis.
The Integrity Unit within the OPUA has conducted numerous trainings on fraud awareness and ethics at the OPUA main office and branch offices via visit or virtual. As part of maintaining the integrity within PUA program activities, the training stressed on how to detect and prevent fraudulent schemes such as false reporting, fictitious employer/employee fraud, employer/employee collusion, misrepresentation of income fraud, wage discrepancies, identity-related fraud, forgery and perjury.
The FSM OPUA is taking necessary precautions for claimants to provide proof of employment, verify personal information and also do cross-matching with FSM Tax and Social Security Administration data to ensure payments are going to the real and affected individuals.
