The government excludes groups of self-employed workers from receiving state support
Statement by AKEL Spokesperson Stefanos Stefanou
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 23rd July 2020, Nicosia
For the umpteenth time AKEL addresses an appeal to the government and the competent Ministry to confront the serious problems identified in the One-time grant scheme to provide support to small and very small Businesses and self-employed working people. The government continues to exclude a number of groups of self-employed working people from receiving state support, flagrantly not doing justice to working people who are already in dire financial straits.
More specifically, the following categories are currently excluded from the One-time grant scheme:
- The self-employed, who on the basis of the decrees issued by the Minister of Health submitted and received a special sickness allowance.
- Self-employed workers who were forced to stay at home to care for their children and received a special childcare allowance for children up to 15 years old.
- Professional fishermen.
- Teachers who are employed by the Ministry of Education and at the same time are self-employed paying contributions to the Social Insurance Fund.
- Retired self-employed and retired owners of businesses, whose businesses continue to operate and therefore have the same operating costs as other businesses.
- Parents’ Associations that employ employees in community departments.
- Beneficiaries of the schemes, small and medium-sized businesses and self-employed persons, during the first or third stage, who inadvertently did not apply for a special allowance during the second period of the Special Schemes.
It is inconceivable that the preconditions set for a one-time state grant exclude persons who were beneficiaries of the Special Schemes based on the decrees.
The government is called upon to realise that there can be no response to the pandemic’s socio-economic consequences and a resumption of economic activity without state support to those who represent the driving force of the Cyprus economy, namely the working people, the self-employed and the small and medium-sized businesses.
