UNC Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Pointe-a-Pierre, Dr David Lee, is urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to en­sure that the var­i­ous COVID-19 re­lief pack­ages get to cit­i­zens quick­er, than cur­rent­ly is the case.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued by Dr Lee, this morn­ing, the Pointe-a-Pierre MP ex­pressed con­cern that long de­lays and a lengthy ap­pli­ca­tion process for the promised grants, is prov­ing detri­men­tal to those seek­ing as­sis­tance, both or­di­nary cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es, alike.

The full text of MP David Lee’s state­ment, fol­lows…

MP LEE – MAKE IT EASY TO AC­CESS THE GRANTS. BE BOLD AND GET RE­LIEF TO THE PEO­PLE!

As the COVID-19 cri­sis fac­ing our na­tion in­ten­si­fies, the Gov­ern­ment needs to be bold, in­no­v­a­tive and get re­lief to af­fect­ed cit­i­zens in a quick­er man­ner. If this ad­min­is­tra­tion is re­al­ly se­ri­ous about the wel­fare of our cit­i­zens, they must en­sure that the promised re­lief pack­ages can be eas­i­ly ac­cessed and ob­tained by our cit­i­zens who have been bur­dened by the un­prece­dent­ed eco­nom­ic and so­cial con­di­tions.

In the last month many busi­ness­es have been crip­pled by the pre­vail­ing cri­sis lead­ing to the in­abil­i­ty to pay thou­sands of work­ers. It is there­fore quite trou­bling and in­tol­er­a­ble that as thou­sands have had dif­fi­cul­ty in earn­ing a month­ly salary, many em­ploy­ers as well as em­ploy­ees have found great dif­fi­cul­ty in ac­cess­ing or ap­ply­ing for the grants promised by the Gov­ern­ment.

As a mat­ter of fact, the rig­or­ous, ex­haust­ing process to even ap­ply for these grants rais­es nu­mer­ous ques­tions such as, “Is the Gov­ern­ment us­ing the lengthy process and re­quire­ments as a de­ter­rent to pre­vent in­di­vid­u­als from ap­ply­ing for the grants? Or “Is the Gov­ern­ment us­ing the lengthy ap­pli­ca­tion process as an ex­cuse to not process or pay these grants on time?”

This te­dious process is clear­ly demon­strat­ed in the Ap­pli­ca­tion Form (Form A) for so­cial as­sis­tance for per­sons who have lost in­come in re­spect of the COVID-19 virus which is sev­en pages long and even re­quires ap­pli­cants to have a bank ac­count.

This spe­cif­ic process may present a chal­lenge to em­ploy­ers as high­ly staffed firms may find it quite mo­not­o­nous to fill out these forms for all the em­ploy­ees in a time­ly man­ner, pre­vent­ing quick ac­cess to re­lief, while em­ploy­ees who do not pos­sess a bank ac­count may ex­clud­ed.

While there is need for prop­er safe­guards and trans­paren­cy, those in au­thor­i­ty must take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that thou­sands have al­ready been placed on the bread­line and are de­pend­ing on this to meet month­ly ex­pens­es, put meals on the ta­ble as well pro­cure ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties.

Gov­ern­ment must do all in their pow­er to en­sure the ap­pli­ca­tion and ac­cess to these grants are made eas­i­er to al­low for quick pro­cess­ing as thou­sands of cit­i­zens are de­pend­ing on this re­lief giv­en the every­day wors­en­ing fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances fac­ing them.

David Lee

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Pointe-a-Pierre