(Trinidad Guardian)- In just two days, more than 14,000 people have already started the process of applying for the Salary Relief Grant for May, Finance Minister Colm Imbert disclosed yesterday.
The majority of those who have applied so far are from the food/restaurant services sector.
The Salary Relief Grant application portal went online on Wednesday at 7 am and by noon yesterday, more than 72,840 people had visited the site.
Most of the visitors to the site, however, seemed to have been people who simply wanted to inquire about it.
“Even though 72,000 persons have visited our salary portal, only 14,000 persons have registered—demonstrating an intention to go through and complete an application—and of those 14,000, 2,850 have already submitted an application and about 12,000 are in the process of submitting their application,” Imbert said.
According to the SRG E-Portal data the number of people who registered as of 11.50 am yesterday was 14,331.
Some 6,538 were from the food/restaurant services sector while 4,820 were from retail outlets.
The construction sector, however, remains unable to access the grant, Imbert said. But it is something he says the Finance Ministry is looking at.
“It is not something we are closing our eyes to. It is also a very large number of people so we have to think about that very carefully so I have taken note of the request from construction workers, but it is complicated,” he said.
Last Monday, Imbert announced that the Government would be providing $1,000 and $1,500 grants to people who lost their jobs this month because of the restrictions put in place to stop the spread of COVID-19.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced that the country was under a State of Emergency with a curfew from 9 pm to 5 am.
Imbert says despite this, however, there are no plans to extend the period for the grants as yet.
