BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE selection criteria for sugar workers seeking payment from the Sugar Workers Restoration Fund (SWRF) is one of the kinks that the Fund is ironing out, as explained by its Chairman Obsert De Suza.
The SWRF was established in early May 2015 after the Venezuelan Government had given an EC$16M grant to the St. Kitts-Nevis Government for payment to former sugar workers who, as was explained, did not receive their full severance packages following the closure of the Sugar Industry in 2005.
Since then, as Desuza informed, more than 2 000 applications have been submitted and are being processed.
The deadline for applicants was originally set as July 4, but it was subsequently extended to July 17th.
Speaking at the Prime Minister’s monthly press conference yesterday afternoon (Jul. 15), De Suza said it is not possible for a further extension to be applied to the deadline. He explained that this is because of the volume of applications far received.
“The committee has decided to give a second chance to persons who would have, for one reason or another, missed the first chance to submit an application to the secretariat. The second chance comes in the form of an extension of the opening of the secretariat to Friday 17th July 2015 at 5:00 p.m.
“We are not in a position to extend the deadline any further because we have to process the applications. To date, the secretariat has collected in excess of 2 000 applications. The applications are constantly entered into a database which will basically ease the processing of information and basically give more efficient calculation of the payments to persons who quality under the selection criteria, which we are still working on.”
De Suza said he was unable to inform of the specific criteria that would be used in the selection process because it is still being fine-tuned.
“…I just want to say we are trying to refine the selection criteria. It’s a lot of information to basically process and review…and as such I am not in a position this afternoon to report on those. I know people would be very interested in understanding what condition they would receive money, but I will do that at an appropriate time and place…”
