THE government has extended repayment deadlines for self-employed Islanders who it says were overpaid support money during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A number of Islanders have now reported to the JEP that they have felt distressed after receiving letters or phone calls accusing them of ‘fraud’ and over-claiming under the Co-funded Payroll Scheme, which was designed to help struggling businesses through the pandemic.
Last month, the JEP revealed that around 270 self-employed people had received letters demanding repayments worth up to £1.9 million.
The original deadline of 28 February for lump-sum repayments has now been extended to 31 March by the government, while those asked to return funds through a repayment plan have been given an extra year to do so.
Treasury Minister Susie Pinel said: ‘The auditing of the co-funded payment scheme is the correct and prudent approach to take. We need to ensure that public money is being spent and accounted for correctly and invested in our public services.
‘To ensure that repayments are not causing financial hardship for businesses, the maximum repayment period for self-employed claimants who do not already have an agreement in place, has been extended from 12 months to two years.’
Senator Kristina Moore, who earlier this week accused the government of ‘going after the little guy’, maintained that Islanders had been sent conflicting information when pursuing their claims.
‘The government actually need to do an internal review, get their own house in order and make sure they send out correctly prepared letters before pursuing members of the public in the way that they have,’ she said.
‘A number of different people I have spoke to have said that they have had two different departments asking for different information to compare their income to make their claims. People have filled out their applications in good faith and then are being accused of fraud.
‘It’s a good thing that they have extended the repayment period to two years but I still don’t think that is going to be enough for some of the people I’m aware of,’ she added.
One concerned Islander anonymously told the JEP that a request for a repayment of £600 per month over the next year had left him and his pregnant girlfriend ‘very stressed’, in particular due to the ‘threatening’ tone of the government’s communication.
Another said that a government officer had suggested to him that he had been ‘milking the system’ by making his claim.
