Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit says his administration will not accept an $8 million proposal from the Dominica Social Security (DSS), that would have been used to assist people who have lost their jobs as a result of the impact of COVID-19.
Under the proposal, the government would have added a EC$9.5 million dollars to help fund other aspects of its COVID-19 relief measures.
However, critics have been questioning the legality of the proposal, among other issues, and Opposition Leader Lennox Linton referred to the move as a raid on social security funds.
Last week, the DSS Director Janice Jean-Jacques Thomas said that the DSS is awaiting passage of the requisite legislative provision to give effect to a recommendation by the institution to provide relief to persons who have been impacted as a result of the disruption in business due to COVID-19.
The Dominica Social Security — as the major pillar of Dominica’s social protection mechanism and like almost all other social security systems within CARICOM — felt it necessary to take action to recommend a measure that would provide a level of income relief to insure persons who has been displaced from work as a result of disruption in business due to the coronavirus,” she added.
She said the International Labour Organization was consulted on possible measures that could be adopted at this time to provide social protection to workers; and their recommendations included consideration of the introduction of an emergency unemployment benefit.
Jean-Jacques Thomas stated further that the firm of Morneau Shepell, in a special bulletin of COVID-19 for Caribbean Social Security Institutions, advised: “If you do not yet have an unemployment benefit it is possible and feasible to introduce one during a recession without prior funding or additional contributions.”
But speaking on the state-owned DBS radio, Skerrit said that he had written to the DSS indicating that his administration is no longer in favour of utilising the funds to assist persons.
“This fund was identified as a possible source for some of the resources required to assist persons, who lost their jobs. In this case, it would only be (for) people contributing to the DSS…and those who were not the government would in the period assist them with some income support.”
Skerrit said while personally he had his own “reservations about this, because I am very careful about the use of funds, which do not directly belong to the state”.
Further, Skerrit said he was disappointed that there “are attempts in the public domain to bring into disrepute and misrepresent the facts of the discussions,” regarding the proposals.
