OPERATION RECOVERY
Gov’t launches task force to rescue COVID-wrecked economy
RAVAGED BY fallout from the coronavirus disease, the Holness administration has established a high-powered task force to kickstart Jamaica’s battered economy and chart the road to recovery in the medium term.
Chaired by Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke, the committee was approved by Cabinet yesterday and comprises leaders and thinkers from academia and industry.
Bemoaning how quickly the effects of the dreaded virus severed tens of thousands of jobs locally, Clarke told a press conference from Jamaica House yesterday that the administration was determined to restore economic activity and claw back employment numbers lost in the wake of COVID-19. The lifting of a lockdown of St Catherine, by Friday morning, is also expected to unshackle commerce in a parish with a population topping half a million.
Clarke indicated that data from SET Cash applications captured 60,000 people who had lost their jobs and were now seeking financial assistance.
HEAVY OBLIGATIONS
This category of persons, he said, comprised mainly persons below the age of 40 who were now facing heavy obligations, including rent, mortgage, and hire-purchase arrangements, without an income to keep them afloat.
“We, through the Economic Recovery Task Force, our job is going to be to do all that we can working with other sectors in the society to ensure that we have the best chance for a recovery of all the jobs that have been temporarily laid off or terminated, that we can have a restoration of economic activity to allow persons to resume the lives they have lived,” said Clarke.
Commenting on the oversubscribed compassionate programme, Clarke said that ministry had confirmed as eligible, on Friday, 350,000 applicants. He said those persons can expect to receive their grant in the coming days.
Financial Secretary Darlene Morrison told members of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee last Tuesday that a total of 403,000 applications were received for the compassionate grant.
The finance minister said the Government took pride in the recent jobs data, noting that in January 2020, unemployment levels had shrunk to a record of 7.2 per cent.
“It is incredibly painful knowing where we have come from, with unemployment just a few years ago about 17 per cent.”
Clarke said that apart from the various assistance packages being rolled out at this time, the Government would be working assiduously “to ensure that this is a temporary experience and that Jamaica can bounce back and can have an economic recovery where all these jobs are restored”.
IMF FUNDS SOON
Providing an update on Jamaica’s application to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to access its Rapid Financing Instrument, Clarke said he expected the application to be considered in a matter of weeks. He said that he received a favourable response from the board of the IMF.
The IMF had recently forecast that the economy would contract by 5.6 per cent.
The Government will table the First Supplementary Estimates of Expenditure in the next two to three weeks, with Clarke conceding that the administration would recast revenues in light of the COVID pandemic.
And minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Daryl Vaz, yesterday detailed plans for the reopening of the business process outsourcing sector. This comes in the wake of the partial shutdown of the sector stemming from an explosion in COVID-19 cases at the Alorica call centre in Portmore, St Catherine.
A major inspection drive of BPOs is expected to be completed next Monday.