40,000 get COVID salary relief - Finance minister defends hike in tobacco tax

PORT-OF-SPAIN (CMC):

The Trinidad and Tobago government said it has paid out more than TT$100 million in salary relief grants to persons here impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert told Parliament that TT$131 million had been used to pay almost 40,000 applicants under the Salary Relief Grant.

But Imbert told legislators that just over TT$50 million hasn’t been used from the TT$186.2 million that was disbursed to the National Insurance Board (NIB) in April.

He said that administrative expenses totalled more than TT$4.1 million.

The finance minister, replying to a question from an opposition legislator, said that a total of 69,346 applications had been received and about 12,000 rejected.

“They were deemed ineligible for the grant for reasons such as no NIS number, they applied outside the dates of eligibility of the grant, they were not dismissed due to COVID1-19, no proof of citizenship, no ID cards, and no statutory declaration, among others,” Imbert said.

The government introduced the salary relief grant in April as businesses here began cutting back on staff owing to the sputtering of the economy as COVID-19 tightened its grip.

The pandemic has killed 111 people and infected nearly 6,000 in Trinidad and Tobago.

Last weekend, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced plans to ease some of the protocols, but bar owners, among other stakeholders, said the measures have not gone far enough to mitigate against forced closures.

Meanwhile, Imbert has defended the decision to impose a 20 per cent increase in excise duty on locally manufactured tobacco products, telling legislators that it costs an estimated half a million dollars to treat a lung-cancer patient in Trinidad and Tobago.

“Smoking is not just dangerous in terms of lung cancer. It’s also a risk factor for cancers of the mouth, the larynx, the pharynx, oesophagus, the kidney, the cervix, the liver, the bladder, the pancreas, stomach, colon, and it is a risk factor for leukaemia. There is no safe way to use tobacco. Absolutely none!” Imbert added.

But opposition legislator Rushton Paray questioned the real intention of the increase, saying he believed that the motive had more to do with revenue generation than wider public health.