Behind every administrative barrier in the social work centres stands a specific person - often a child with a disability or an elderly person - who is left without what the law says is theirs. The Levica party, citing an audit finding, is calling for an audit of the social work centres, arguing that vulnerable citizens are "victims of the dysfunction and lack of coordination between institutions".

The findings are concrete and harsh. Instead of the centres themselves obtaining documents already held by other state bodies, they make citizens run from counter to counter, with extra costs and lost time - an "administrative maze" that many simply give up on getting through. The same problem recurs with housing allowances, disability benefits and social security for the elderly.

But the most paradoxical part is where the money ends up. Because of the absence of data exchange between institutions, state funds were reaching people who don't meet the conditions. Without cooperation with the Interior Ministry, the minimum guaranteed assistance was going to vehicle owners who shouldn't be receiving it. Without a link to the pension fund, 190 beneficiaries were drawing both social assistance and a pension at the same time - unfounded payments of 10.7 million denars.

Here's the brutal arithmetic of a dysfunctional system: while a child with a disability waits months for an opinion from a medical panel, the money flows without a hitch to where it shouldn't. That's not just poor organisation - it's a system that punishes the very people who need it most and rewards those who know how to slip through. Who will answer for those 10.7 million, and more importantly - who will answer for the lost dignity of people left to wander through the maze?