SASCHA WIL­SON

Scores of peo­ple turned up in front of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board of T&T (NIBTT) in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day seek­ing to ap­ply for the salary re­lief grant for work­ers who lost their jobs as a re­sult of mea­sures to re­duce the spread of COVID-19.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert on Mon­day an­nounced that peo­ple who lost their jobs will be able to ac­cess a grant of $1,500 a month for three months.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, NIBTT in­formed Guardian Me­dia that the grant was not yet avail­able to mem­bers of the pub­lic.

“Please do not vis­it our of­fices to en­quire about this fa­cil­i­ty, as large gath­er­ings pose a se­ri­ous risk to our em­ploy­ees, cus­tomers and mem­bers of the pub­lic,” stat­ed NIBTT in a sub­se­quent me­dia re­lease.

NIBTT, how­ev­er, as­sured that “as soon as this fa­cil­i­ty is avail­able and op­er­a­tional­ized, fur­ther pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion by the or­ga­ni­za­tion will fol­low.”

From ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, peo­ple gath­ered at the front gate, the ma­jor­i­ty want­i­ng to ap­ply for the grant.

Around 9.30 am, more than ten peo­ple were still in front of the build­ing, some stand­ing at the gate while oth­ers stood on the op­po­site side of the road. On­ly four cus­tomers were al­lowed in­to the build­ing at a time.

A 38-year-old store clerk from Bar­rack­pore who was sent home two weeks ago said she had been wait­ing for more than a half an hour. “My boss­es not telling me whether they will give me two or three days a week (work). So when I heard that the min­is­ter is go­ing to give $1,500 a month to peo­ple who are lose their work I came this morn­ing to see what help I could get.”

How­ev­er, she com­plained that she was em­ployed at the store for a year, but her em­ploy­er failed to pay her NIS con­tri­bu­tions. “I brought all my doc­u­ments and re­ceipts where I use to pay NIS from the oth­er jobs I work and I hop­ing I could get some kind of help.” Agnes Lo­gan, 64, said she was wait­ing more than an hour to col­lect a form.