And while the program for MSME's starts on August first, the second
wave fo the unemployment relief program will start before that.
But, this time, it will have a narrower focus group. It will not
include those who have been unemployed for years but focus instead on
getting relief to those who lost their jobs due to COVID-19. That
change is likely due to the absence of the PUP from the decision
making. In March, the PUP had pressed for the program to be all
inclusive, while the UDP just wanted it to cover those in the tourism
sector.
Well, the second push from this program which goes live later this
month will be closer to that original vision. We start the explanation
with a review of phase one of the program:
Dr. Carla Barnett - Economic Czar
"Of these persons, a fully 45% were persons who were laid off and we
had another 25% who were self employed persons and the remaining 30%
fell in that category that we termed long term unemployed persons. The
total expenditure by the time we complete all of the payments under
phase 1 will be about 34.5 million dollars. The category we had in
phase 1 that we termed long term unemployed, we will direct all of
those persons to the Ministry of Human Development."
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"They will now be looked at in the context of the augmentation of the
BOOST program. It's not that we want to now turn our backs on those
that got in, in the terms of the relief offered to those principally we
thought, that were affected by Covid. So, the concentration, the
priority always ought to have been those that were newly unemployed."
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