The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

WORKS & Utilities Minister Alfred Sears said the Unregulated Communities Action Task Force has requested $6.6m to fulfil its tasks.

That budget would cover overtime salaries, travel and subsistence, strategic communication, supplies and materials, tablets for data collection, services, heavy equipment and rental for demolitions, trucks and jeeps for the Royal Bahamas Police and Defence Force and consultancy fees for environmental assessment.

Mr Sears noted that while $6.6m has been requested, the 2023/2024 budget only has $600k for the task force.

“A secretariat has been established, which will be attached to the Ministry of Works whose overall composition will be made up of constituents from the Royal Bahamas police force, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, Bahamas Power and Light, and other ministries of the government as may be necessary from time to time,” Mr Sears said during his contribution to the budget debate yesterday.

Mr Sears said officials are contacting the international community to request as much assistance and understanding of how to facilitate the task force’s work as possible.

He said the Cabinet-appointed inter-ministerial committee had met regularly to design an action plan to address this matter and consider this process’s humanitarian and social implications.

Mr Sears noted Chief Justice Ian Winder’s recent ruling ordering the demolition of shanty town structures belonging to just two people in the country. The chief justice ordered that “offending structures” be removed within 45 days. He did not say when the Ministry of Works would demolish the structures.