This Thursday, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and the Mixed Institute of Social Aid, IMAS, began with the payment of the third month for the beneficiaries of the Protect Bond.

This payment is given after the completion of the deposits of the second months for a total of 523,957 beneficiaries.

In total, it is an investment of more than 127 billion colones drawn by the National Emergency Commission, IMAS and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, for a total of 1,575,000 deposits between the first and second month.

The hierarch of Labor, Geannina Dinarte Romero stressed that "we are pleased to report that we have concluded with the full deposit of the second month for more than half a million beneficiaries. Likewise, thanks to the joint effort of IMAS, the National Emergency Commission, the Ministry of Work and the Ministry of Finance, we have started with the payment of the third month from this Thursday. "

"During the last three months, the country and its institutions have focused on guaranteeing the health and relief of people with a labor impact in the context of this emergency. The start of this third payment, and the request for resources that we will present to the Legislative Assembly in the coming days, leads us to prepare ourselves now to attend with higher priority to people who have applied for the Protect Bond, but are still awaiting a final resolution of their cases. "

It highlights the fact that, thanks to the Protect platform, 180,000 people have benefited from banking. Before the start of the pandemic, these people did not have bank accounts, which was possible thanks to the possibility offered by the Bond and the collaboration of Banco Popular.

These 180 thousand people represent a growth of 3% in bank penetration in the country.

On the other hand, the hierarch of Labor Geannina Dinarte and the Executive President of the IMAS, Juan Luis Bermúdez signed the modification of the decree of creation of the Protect Bond, which varies article 9 on the temporality of the Protect Bond, as well as the term and Bonus delivery possibilities.

It introduces the possibility of suspending the process of analysis of new applications for the granting of new subsidies, when there is no budget content that allows covering at least the 3 months provided for said benefit, which will be communicated to the email address and the number telephone number indicated in the application form as a means of receiving notifications.

Finally, it adds a last paragraph to article 19 that enables the prioritization criteria to be modified in the allocation of resources: "when the available resources do not allow for the totality of requests for the Protect Bond, the administration may adjust the parameters applied to the prioritization criteria previously listed in this article to target and provide a higher degree of priority to people with the highest incidence of vulnerability. "

The Protect Bond was launched on April 9 as a response to provide assistance to people affected by labor because of COVID-19. As of today, 962,572 Bonus requests have been received and a total of 533,829 Bonds have been awarded.

"PROTECT has been an effort of all Costa Rica, which has helped alleviate the situation of hundreds of thousands of people affected by COVID-19. We are awaiting the approval of the extraordinary budget that will allow us to grant approximately 200,000 bonds more with the money coming from the INS and the Fuel Law. This is very important to respond to people in vulnerable conditions who have been waiting for this help for a long time, "added Minister Dinarte .