The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

THE Economic Recovery Committee has recommended a reduction to extended National Insurance Board unemployment benefit payments to $75 per week.

In preliminary recommendations for immediate recovery from the COVID- 19 pandemic the ERC submitted the recommendation among several others on August 22.

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis has said the government is reviewing the recommendations, but will not take all of them on board.

“Extend unemployment benefit payments, subject to available fiscal resources,” the ERC said in an executive summary report tabled in Parliament yesterday.

“To avoid social dislocation, seek to extend unemployment benefits payments at a reduced subvention rate at the end of the current 13 weeks - ie, from $150 per week to $75 per week.”

The ERC also recommended suspending the $500 personal border tax allowance for returning residents for a period of six months. Its report said the border tax allowance per person encourages people to travel and shop abroad.

“To discourage shopping trips and to promote domestic purchases, the allowance should be suspended for a period of six months,” the report noted.

However, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis said yesterday the government rejected this recommendation.

Recently, NIB cut unemployment benefits to $100 a week.

The reduction sparked outrage from some, leading Public Service and NIB Minister Brensil Rolle to defend it last week saying: “We’re doing the best we can.”

He said: “We realise that it is not perhaps what individuals have been accustomed to or what they have been making, but you got to also take into context that we’ve been doing this now for six months and we’ve been making payments to individuals for this period and we must be assured that basically we started (at) $200 a week and it has reduced to $150 and now it’s to $100.

“I hear the frustration as well from some individuals and I say we hear your cry and we know it’s tough, but we too are taking the position that we must do some things and one of the things we are doing is providing some form of income support to families that may be out of work.”

The National Insurance Board has paid out more than $160m in benefits and assistance cheques to unemployed workers directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with over $12m spent towards Hurricane Dorian victims to date.

Mr Rolle revealed the figures during his ministry’s press conference last week when he noted that the organisation’s total expenditure towards both Hurricane Dorian and COVID-19’s initiatives has amounted to $176m.