By: Chaïra Flanders
Basseterre, St. Kitts, April 12, 2020 (ZIZ News): The Department of Labour has so far received two thousand applications from persons seeking financial assistance under the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund.
This was revealed by Deputy Commissioner of Labour, Dr. Deon Webb, as he delivered his presentation the public at Sunday’s National Emergency Operations Centre COVID-19 Daily Briefing.
He said, “despite the challenges of the lockdown, the Department of Labour has been working extremely hard to bring this relief to fruition. We have received to-date approximately 2000 applications via email and we are in the process of verifying these applications”.
Dr. Webb assured that the Department of Labour, in conjunction with Social Security, will deliver this relief”, while also asking persons to be patient and refrain from panic.
He then used the opportunity to encourage employers to submit information about employees who have been affected as soon as possible. He also listed the type of information required by the department.
“We are encouraging all employers who are affected by the present pandemic to please send their information about their employees to the Department of Labour as soon as possible. The information we are seeking, [is] the employees banking information, their names, their wages, previous hours, proposed hours and their social security number”, he explained.
The Deputy Commissioner of Labour said the information must be submitted to deon.webb@gov.kn or psrattan.lssea@gmail.com. Self-employed persons seeking relief must contact the St. Christopher and Nevis Social Security Board directly.
Full-time and part-time employees who were laid off, employees with reduced hours who are now earning less than $1,000 per month, persons whose positions were made redundant and self-employed persons registered with social security all qualify for the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund.