Orihuela
May 1
Hello, can you help? It appears that either no one or very few people in Orihuela Costa has received an ERTE payment as yet. It has been nearly eight weeks. A lot of people work in the bar/restaurant trade, on low wages and live week to week. There are people who can’t feed their children. What’s going on, can you find out please?
Thank you
Dear reader
Despite the promise to speed-up the process, the truth is there have been delays in the processing and many are still pending approval and payment. Some banks are facilitating the amounts in advance (if proof of ERTE is provided). As the SEPE office (in charge of ERTE benefits) is only operating online and not taking phone calls, very little can be done to follow each case up. You can access http://www.sepe.es/HomeSepe/COVID-19.html where you will find instructions in Spanish to check your situation. The majority of ‘gestores’ can only recommend patience – although as you very rightly say, that does not put food on the table.
Some towns halls and regional governments are providing special aid packages, for which we can only advise contacting your local council to see what is available.
We are trying to get more accurate information, but if Spanish bureaucracy is usually tedious, you can image what it’s like in a lockdown!
