To date 139,100 Costa Ricans have been waiting for the “Bono Proteger” for three months (from April), while others who registered later (in May and June) have already obtained their deposit. The reason is that deposits are prioritized according to the “condition of vulnerability of people”, as explained in the Ministry of Labor. For example, people who have no income, who are female heads of household with minors, who have a disability condition or who are dependent on older adults.
“The delivery of the bond is not done ‘first come, first served basis,” stressed the institution through its press office. To date, no request has been rejected, and only more resources are being awaited to continue with deliveries that have been paralyzed since early June. In total, 408,987 people that registered in the system are awaiting for the bond (with a cut as of June 8th), of whom 139,100 requested it since April, 237,592 in May and another 32,295 during the first eight days of June.
The Bond delivery platform was created by the national administration in response to the economic crisis experienced by thousands of families whose income was affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic and was announced as the option of social assistance for those who lost their jobs.
According to the official Ministry document analyzed (as of June 8th), 532,809 protect bonds have been delivered and correspond to 435,273 people who requested it in April (platform’s opening month), 96,577 who requested it in May, and even 959 deposits to people who requested it in June and were deposited almost immediately.
This same data published by the Ministry of Labor indicates that at the end of the previous week, of the total number of active beneficiaries (533,829), the second deposit was made to 431,421 people, with more than one hundred thousand pending transfer. In addition, the delivery of the third bond to all beneficiaries is still pending.
According to the authorities, there is already a budget reserve to complete all the pending deposits of this group of people (533,829 who have already received it), however, there are no resources to deliver new aid.
“We no longer have the resources to allocate any more Bonos Proteger,” said the Minister of Labor on June 11th, when learned that the deputies of the Legislative Assembly had rejected the extraordinary budget of the Government that included ¢75,000 million for the delivery of social aid.
The legislators made the decision to reject the process due to lack of cuts in public spending and with this, they revealed that the Government lacked a Plan B to continue the program of delivery of social aid, as acknowledged by the President of the Republic, Carlos Alvarado.
Since then (early June) no new deposits have been made, while the platform is still enabled for receiving requests for help. Now the Government is preparing a new extraordinary budget that will be delivered next week to the Legislative Assembly when the deputies return from the recess that was approved due to the risk of contagion that exists from COVID-19.
