The Min­istry of Fi­nance has of­fi­cial­ly launched an En­tre­pre­neur­ial Re­lief Grant for those mi­cro and small en­ter­pris­es (MSEs) that have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The Grant will be ad­min­is­tered by NED­CO, the Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease is­sued by NED­CO, the re­lief grant will pro­vide fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to mi­cro and small en­ter­pris­es (MSEs) that earn less than TT $1,000,000 in an­nu­al rev­enues, which were neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“Af­fect­ed MSEs can ac­cess up to TT $20,000 in grant fund­ing to help cov­er busi­ness-re­lat­ed ex­pens­es such as salaries, rent, stock and oth­er work­ing cap­i­tal,” the re­lease ex­plains.

NED­CO has out­lined the var­i­ous cri­te­ria MSEs must meet, in or­der to qual­i­fy for the En­tre­pre­neur­ial Re­lief Grant:

■  Busi­ness own­ers must be a cit­i­zen or le­gal res­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go and be 18 years and over;

■  Ap­pli­cants must have an ex­ist­ing busi­ness to ap­ply;

■  Un­reg­is­tered busi­ness­es can ap­ply, but ap­pli­cants must reg­is­ter their com­pa­ny be­fore funds are dis­bursed;

■  The busi­ness must earn less than TT $1 mil­lion in an­nu­al in­come;

■  Any type of le­gal busi­ness can ap­ply, in­clud­ing sole traders;

■  Ap­pli­cants who re­ceived oth­er COVID-19 re­lief ben­e­fits are not el­i­gi­ble for the En­tre­pre­neur­ial Re­lief Grant; and

■  Ap­pli­cants with pend­ing or cur­rent crim­i­nal court pro­ceed­ings against them will not be el­i­gi­ble.

In­ter­est­ed mi­cro and small en­ter­pris­es are in­vit­ed to vis­it www.ned­cot­t­fund­ing.com for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, to check their el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for the grant and to ap­ply.

MSEs wish­ing to ap­ply for the En­tre­pre­neur­ial Re­lief Grant must sub­mit the fol­low­ing Per­son­al and Busi­ness doc­u­ments:

PER­SON­AL DOC­U­MENTS

■  Two forms of valid Trinidad and To­ba­go iden­ti­fi­ca­tion;

■  Per­son­al Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR) num­ber.

BUSI­NESS DOC­U­MENTS

■  Cer­tifi­cate of Reg­is­tra­tion and/or proof of as­sign­ment of a busi­ness Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR) num­ber;

■  Proof of busi­ness op­er­a­tions;

■  Proof of ad­dress.