Some hoteliers submitting family names for Coronavirus fund – NBSSI

Some hoteliers are submitting family names under the same business to access the government’s Covid-19 stimulus package being distributed by the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), Executive Director of the board has disclosed.

Mrs. Kosi Yankey-Ayeh noted that the deliberate attempt to take advantage of the system was becoming rampant, which according to her, was not conducive for the program.

She was responding to an allegation made by the hoteliers association that only two per cent of their members got access to the stimulus.

“In some instances, we got data from the same people. If they were about thirteen people, we had about eight of them from the same family. If it was an association, you bring your association and say ‘I have thirteen members who applied,’ and out of the thirteen, seven of them or five of them are from the same family, trying to take advantage of the system".

“We made it clear that you cannot apply more than once. So that we would be able to provide other people support. But this was becoming rampant in some of these associations which was not conducive to the program that we did,” she told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr.

Mrs Yakney-Ayeh, however, added that her office may have given businesses who did not belong to associations.

“You receive a pot of names, and those are people who are also hotels. You might have a business but that doesn’t mean you are part of an association".

“So, to be able to address the concerns of the associations and for us to also protect the data that we have, we had specifically said to the associations ‘give us the list of your beneficiaries and how much they have applied for.'”