As of Thurs­day, 20,173 peo­ple had re­ceived COVID-19 Salary Re­lief Grants from Gov­ern­ment – and an­oth­er 20,000 will re­ceive grants by month-end.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced this in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, dis­miss­ing UNC MP David Lee’s claim that on­ly 18,899 peo­ple re­ceived grants. Im­bert said that fig­ure was two days ago.

Im­bert said the min­istry’s Salary Re­lief Grant unit is pro­cess­ing and pay­ing grants at a rate of 1,000 ap­pli­ca­tions dai­ly.

The cost of the grants paid to the 20,173 peo­ple is $28 mil­lion, he said.

Im­bert said 51,000 ap­pli­ca­tions were re­ceived in to­tal – but ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 per cent weren’t valid for var­i­ous rea­sons. He said these in­clud­ed peo­ple who may have been out of jobs long be­fore March 19 when Pub­lic Health reg­u­la­tions be­gan – and places closed. Oth­er ap­pli­ca­tions in­volved peo­ple who weren’t in the NIS sys­tem or who weren’t T&T cit­i­zens.

“About 40,000 ap­pli­ca­tions were valid and we paid half of this and by month-end, all 40,000 ap­pli­ca­tions will be paid,” Im­bert said, adding the grant be­ing paid was for peo­ple in the NIS sys­tem on­ly.

On whether Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue pay­ing grants af­ter June – if busi­ness con­tin­ues slump­ing and job loss con­tin­ues – Im­bert said the pro­jec­tions for the cost of the grant was for April, May and June dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the first Pub­lic Health reg­u­la­tions.

“As to how long peo­ple will be out of jobs ... this sit­u­a­tion is dy­nam­ic and evolv­ing – we’ll keep it un­der con­stant re­view and will make ap­pro­pri­ate de­ci­sions based on what’s hap­pen­ing,” Im­bert said.

Im­bert not­ed con­struc­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing and re­tail busi­ness­es have restart­ed and per­son­al ser­vices re­sume next week.

—Gail Alexan­der