FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert said Government has spent over $5 billion in its response to all aspects of the covid19 pandemic and is committed to continuing to provide whatever help it can to people adversely affected by the pandemic.
At a virtual news conference on Monday, Imbert said, "For covid, we have crossed the $5 billion mark. We intend to provide as much relief as we can."
He added that in the next budget there would be an allocation for residual covid relief going forward.
As of August 16, Imbert said, 4,070 people have received salary relief grants (SRGs) and that payout was approximately $12 million. He said there were 14,747 applications for SRGs up to that date.
In Tobago, Imbert said there are approximately 774 SRG applications which are being processed.
He added the ministry is sorting out some confusion that some Tobagonians had with respect to applying for the income support grant (ISG), which is being offered by the Social Development Ministry, and the SRG, which is being offered by his ministry.
On the purchase of covid19 vaccines, Imbert said this was in the $75 million range. Regarding the acquisition of single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines from the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust, Imbert said a downpayment was made for the first batch of 180,000 doses of that vaccine, which are en route to Trinidad and Tobago, which had committed to buy 800,000 doses of J&J
He estimated the total expenditure for purchase of vaccines could be approximately $100 million. . Contrary to claims from some people, Imbert said, Government has not spent a single cent of a US$204 million loan from China on covid19 vaccine procurement. He said that expenditure came from general revenue of the ministry.
On assistance to bar owners and people who work in bars, Imbert said he has been holding virtual meetings with the association representing them and is hopeful a resolution could be reached in the next two weeks. Reiterating that the informality of this sector in terms of things like tax payments make it difficult for people employed in its to access grants being offered by the Government, Imbert said ways and means will be explored to help them, given the length of time bars have been closed during the pandemic.
On the government-guaranteed loan programme set up to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) affected by the pandemic, Imbert said 272 out of over 300 SMEs were able to access loans through the programme. Noting challenges that some applicants to this programme were having, such as inability to provide basic financial information or meet minimum debt service requirements, he said, "Over the last six months, I have been doing a review with the Central Bank, who I asked to meet with the commercial banks and also meet with the larger organisations representing business to try and establish what were the issues."
Based on those discussions, Imbert said the programme is being revised "to allow an extended period of repayment from five years to seven years."
He also said
