Financial Assistance for Job Retention (FA4JR) Press Conference 22 May 2020
May 22, 2020
The Minister of Finance, Trade, Investment and Economic Planning, Amb. Maurice Loustau-Lalanne spoke to the media in a live press conference on Friday 22 May along with Secretary of State for Finance, Patrick Payet, to provide an update on the Financial Assistance for Job Retention (FA4JR) scheme. The scheme was designed to help private sector businesses in Seychelles affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to pay the salaries of their employees.
"We gave the Committee six working days to finish their work, and today is the last day," said Minister Loustau-Lalanne. "So today I can confirm that the Committee will fulfill the mandate I gave them, and I would like to thank them for their work. However, there has been a new development. There are no longer 4,065 applications; there are now 4,417 applications for the month of April. This means there have been 352 new applications for the month of April."
The Minister further clarified that many of these new applications had come in after the deadline of the 8th of May, and that he had taken the decision to ask the Committee to consider them given the circumstances.
"It has put more pressure on the Committee to complete its mandate to finalise all April applications," he added. "After discussion with the Chairperson of the Committee, the decision was taken that over the weekend, each member of the Committee will take 50 applications each and finalise all decisions for the month of April by Monday the 25th of May."
The Minister also reiterated that all approved April applications would be paid from the 25th of May.
Watch the full press conference below or click here to access the video on YouTube.