And a waiting game is just what tens of thousands of applicants to the COVID 19 Unemployment Relief Program are playing.
The online portal, which was the main avenue for applying for this COVID-19 financial aid, was closed to new applicants at around 4 p.m. on last Friday. According to the Government, at that time, a total of 81,007 applications were submitted.
Out of that number, 37,371 applications have been approved, and 34,425 have been sent to the Social Security Board for payment to applicants. As of Friday, a total of 3.4 million dollars had been paid out to 25,574 approved applicants.
Today, the press asked the Prime Minister why the program had been closed at this time:
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow- Prime Minister
"Last I check the labour force was under one hundred thousand, around 90 plus thousand."
Jules Vasquez - Reporter
"107,000 pays social security. SIB says the labour force is 170,000."
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow- Prime Minister
"Well that's not what I saw. Maybe what I saw is out of date, but you can't tell me the labour force is 170,000. In any event 80 or 80 odd thousand applications is a whole lot and what I understood from Dr. Barnett the process of screening the applications was becoming hellishly difficult, because it appeared that a fair amount of the latest batch of applications was bogus and naturally it slows down the entire process, because they come you have to at least give them the benefit of the doubt and screen them. So I believe what was said is that it's closed for now. Step back, take a breath look at in deed what's been coming in, see if it has not reach a point where the majority of the late applications in fact is from people that don't qualify. If that turns out to be less, if the fraud or the attempt at fraud turns out to be less than we currently believe it is, then we wheel and come again."
All applicants can continue to check on the status of their applications by visiting www.covid19.bz.
A release says, all the remaining applications will continue to be processed, and if there is a determination made that the portal needs to be reopened to new applications, that decision will be announced when it is made.
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