The Social Security Board is struggling to fulfil its obligations due to the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Executive Director David Matthias told state media that the board was behind by months for some payments.
“We continue to discharge our payments for the month of May. You would observe that that would mean that we are practically a month behind with regards to our payments with regards to pensions and we are currently five months behind with regards to our payments for short term,” Matthias said.
He said the 11 pm to 5 am curfew led to fewer working hours for some people, which translated into reduced contributions.
“With restricted working hours. That is, the working time ending at 11 pm in the evening, you would not see the number of hours a person would traditionally work,” he said.
“If I use 2019 as the reference period, we would’ve seen in the early stages of COVID as much as a 40% decline in contributions as a result. With the lockdown that dropped down precisely to 60%,” Matthias explained.
The Executive Director said that the board introduced innovative ways to do business with its customers to make transactions easier and limit face-to-face contact during the pandemic.
“We are now on board with D-Cash, as a D-Cash merchant. That means we are full partners with the Caribbean Union Bank and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank to pilot and to test the D-Cash module,” he announced.
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