Dominican employees who are eligible to benefit from the Government Income Support Programme at the Dominica Social Security, now have another 3 months to apply.
The programme was set up to provide assistance to employees on the island who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19.
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, in announcing the extension, said the programme is going well but revealed that one of the biggest challenges in the application process is employer verification and urged applicants to ensure their employer signs the form.
“The money is there. You are qualified but we need this verification from your employer,” he stated.
He advised those applicants who have not received money to call or visit the DSS and assured them that the money was placed there to be given to them but also pointed out that there are conditions that have to be met in order to ensure that the funds are properly accounted for.
To date, DSS has paid a total of $1.985 million in assistance to people who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19.
“We have seen a total of 1714 applicants and the payments began sometime in June, so what has happened is that the World Bank has laid down a number of conditions that have to be satisfied by the applicants, the verification process is very tedious…,” Deputy Director of the Dominica Social Security (DSS) Augustus Etienne has revealed.
The World Bank has made available $5.2 million to the government of Dominica to fund the programme.
Etienne said that within the last couple of weeks a total of $1.985 million has been paid to 1091 employees who received $1.492 million with $493,000 going to 623 self-employed persons.
He said that of the applications that have been reviewed, a total of 993 employees and 282 self-employed applications have been disallowed for various reasons, such as the applicants being non-citizens of Dominica and the income of some self-employed persons for last year being in excess of $100,000.
The DSS official explained that the conditions for benefitting from the programme require that the individual provide a passport or birth certificate, that the person must be employed in Dominica and provide “evidence by provision of employer details on the application form.”
“The individual would have to be laid off or terminated between March 1st and August 15th 2020 and the employers would have to verify that this is in fact so,” he stated. “Individuals must remain unemployed and not be engaged in business activity in order to receive each monthly payment and they have to provide evidence to that effect for each subsequent monthly payment.”
Another criterion is that the applicant must not receive other unemployment benefits as a result of his or her termination and this, according to Etienne, has to be evidenced by the employer and verified by social security records.
Also, the total employment income of the individual must not have exceeded $4000 per month which can be verified by the social security contribution record that would have been submitted prior to March.
Etienne made it clear that the question of who is eligible to receive grants has nothing to do with politics.
“The question of being political that is not one of the conditions or the criteria the World Bank has laid down,” he said. “We are looking at the qualified, the requirements that individuals have to be citizens of Dominica.”
Salaries and wages have stagnated. Inflation/cost of living is constantly on the rise. The minimum wage is ridiculous meager. The purchasing power of the ordinary citizen is diminishing by the day. Good paying jobs have long disappeared as the economy is near lifeless. To access these recent public funds is like studying to become a nuclear physicist. Best of luck to those genuinely needy persons who try.
$5.2mil from the world bank is a vote of confidence in financial management. Good job guys.