Relief Coming – Vetting is Thorough to Ensure Qualified Beneficiaries Receive Monies
Some twenty-three thousand have been approved, which represents over thirty-five percent. While, those figures grew significantly over the past few days, several have been clamoring that the help is not reaching them fast enough. Today, we asked Co-Chair Coye about this issue. He says he doesn’t believe it is moving too slowly, but that there are several things that had to be done to get the programme ready. During the verification programme, there are some small details that must be filtered to ensure that the beneficiaries are those who qualify for the programme. Coye says that no priority is being placed on the recently unemployed when compared to the longer unemployed applications.
On the Phone: Chris Coye, Co-Chair, Economic Oversight Committee
“I am not sure I would agree that it has been moving along slowly. You can look at many different jurisdictions and see that process. I think Jamaica just launched theirs on Friday, I believe. They had over seventy-one thousand applications the first day and their system actually crashed as well. But subsequent to that, they have seen quite a bit of applications and they are not looking to pay out for another thirty days. Our application was launched a little over a week and a half ago and we have already started making payments. I appreciate that there is certainly a high demand; there’s a high need. We have to appreciate that those applications have to be vetted which means they have to pass various exclusions. You have to be a Belizean for one; they have to be eighteen years or older; any opportunity for double dipping has to be eliminated. So, if you are a member of the BOOST programme; or you are a government or social security pensioner, you are not eligible. So, all that screening has to be done and you have to get database from BOOST; database from government treasury and database from Social Security. And the recently unemployed versus the long unemployed we also have to apply parameters to ensure that people are unemployed. The reality is of those sixty-two, you have quite a bit of those who applied and are still working. I don’t think it would be fair for us to be paying people who are still working. So all that screening has to be done and it is a significant task. You also have to bear in mind applying the social security database. The people who became unemployed in March, the social security database won’t have that until the middle of April. The employers don’t have to submit their filings until April 15th, I think. So, you don’t get that data in to Social Security until today. So, all that plays a role in how this screening process operates and how approval can be given for eligible applicants.”
Andrea Polanco
“Does the committee prioritize who gets their monies first, for example are persons who are recently unemployed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic get their monies before persons who have been unemployed for a long time?”
On the Phone: Chris Coye
“No. Not at all. There are recently unemployed and those who have lost their income, which may include self-employed and there are also longer unemployed. There is no preference of one above the other whatsoever. So far as going through the process of vetting, they have to go through what is verifiable based on those parameters that I briefly mentioned. For example, the longer unemployed has a parameter if you haven’t been working or haven’t been employed for the past three months – January, February, March – that is the agreed parameter to determine whether you are a long unemployed. If you have been employed until the end of January and then after that you lost your job then you will be treated as a recently unemployed. So, that is in effect the gauge by which determines if you are eligible as a recently unemployed or a longer term unemployed, providing that you pass the other exclusions.”
