By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday said the National Insurance Board (NIB) and government have spent a combined $230m on unemployment and income support during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brensil Rolle, minister for the public service with responsibility for NIB, speaking outside the Cabinet Office, said: “Never before in the history of The Bahamas has any government agency spent as much as NIB on income support and unemployment assistance.

“I looked at the numbers yesterday, which suggests that when we look at the entire income support and unemployment assistance programme, some $219m has already been spent, and that does not include an additional $10m that will come in the month of February. So I can easily say that roughly in terms of income support alone, Bahamians have benefited to some degree by nearly $230m.”

Mr Rolle continued: “I think the Bahamian public also appreciates that the government has extended income support for much longer than even we believe was possible. If you look back at the history of income support in the country, we anticipated that we would have gone to June. It’s now almost 12 months of solid income support from the government and NIB.”

The unemployment benefits kicked-in from March 2020 amid the economic devastation inflicted on tourism and other industries by COVID-19’s lockdowns. The Government expected it to last only until June 2020, but once NIB’s 13 weeks of payments stopped it was forced to provide unemployment benefits assistance itself.

Mr Rolle said the Government has also decided not to lay-off any public sector workers. He added that the Cabinet decided against it and, even though some agencies are “overstaffed.

He added: “Just over 1,000 individuals leave the public service every year and we’ve not increased that number. We’ve not increased the number of persons entering the public service either. So individuals are trying to at this time to keep a job. This is the environment in which we live.”

The Government also last night pledged that it will start paying all monies owed to Airport Authority workers over a six-month period starting with the March pay period. The Ministry of Tourism, in a statement, said it was “fully committed to honouring all agreed terms of the industrial agreement, and this has been communicated”.

It added: “The current financial constraints we face as a result of COVID-19 and its impact on our economy did not make it possible to honour these payments, and we ask for the continued patience of the Airport Authority and its employees as we rebuild our economy stronger and continue to demonstrate our promise to protecting jobs.

“The Airport Authority generates its revenue from the travelling public by way of collection of security and related travel fees at the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) and our 28 Family Island airports.

“Despite a steep decline in revenue to only a fraction of what is required to honour our commitments, we have retained all of our 600-plus employees on full pay, notwithstanding the fact that the majority are working a significantly reduced work week,” the Ministry continued.

“Specifically, all employees, with the exception of the airport screening and security departments, have been working approximately 20 hours weekly, with full pay, and during the peak of the pandemic. Most were not required to work at all as the airports were closed or operating on extremely limited schedules.

“As demonstrated, we have strongly resisted furloughing employees and/or terminating anyone because of the pandemic as we see the engagement of all of our employees as a part of the solution on our road to recovery and maintaining economic stability.”