The Ministry for the Family, Children’s Rights and Social Solidarity has completed its fourth payment instalment of the newly beneficiary grants introduced with response to those employers that had their work affected due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
These measures have injected €4.3 million between 5,629 persons who qualified for such assistance. This also means that a further 5000 jobs were secured.
The employers benefiting from these measures already received an average of €760 while other applicants will start receiving the payments in the coming days with the backdated arrears included.
These details were announced on Thursday morning by Minister for the Family, Children’s Rights and Social Solidarity and the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mark Musu.
8,504 applications were received during this 4-week period, with 91% of the applications already dealt with. Today’s payments include 4,908 persons receiving the benefits, that range from the parents benefit, medical benefit, disability benefit or those of managing to retain the work.
These social measures have helped to secure 5,000 jobs, along with 77,000 jobs secured by the Malta Enterprise, summing up to 82,000 jobs.
Minister Michael Falzon praised the Department for Social Security which has managed to work efficiently through 91% of the cases, while keeping on track on other social benefits such as pensions, children’s allowance, child bonus, among others.
The Ministry is not only assisting through financial means but has been also giving emotional and support assistance through a number of other means.
In fact, the Ministry assisted 8,320 persons who needed assistance through the helpline 25903030, that mainly received calls related to the delivery of essential products to the elderly. Apart from that, Agency Appoġġ, received around 1900 calls on the helpline 1772, which helps people facing solitude.
Minister Michael Falzon announced that around 7500 boxes of food were distributed to households that need more support during these difficult times.