The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

WITH repair efforts related to Hurricane Matthew expected to extend into 2017, government officials are still unable to give an official price tag for the efforts, despite “hundreds” of contracts about to be signed and a large number nearing completion.

National Disaster Recovery Co-ordinator and Labour Minister Shane Gibson, in an address to the members of the press after the opening of the Institute of Leadership and Management Training Centre on Monday, said his office remains unable to produce a firm figure for repair efforts as many aspects were still in flux.

The Golden Gates MP pointed to varying estimations and workloads for public infrastructure, homes slotted to be repaired by government and other homes being repaired by insurance institutions, as the leading reasons behind the government’s inability to produce a “rough estimation” to date.

According to Mr Gibson, his office would look to give the public specific figures as they become available in the coming weeks.

In days following Hurricane Matthew in October, Prime Minister Perry Christie estimated the total cost of repairs to be three or four times higher than the $100m in damage left by Hurricane Joaquin last year.

Despite not being able to quote a cost of ongoing efforts, Mr Gibson said his office was in the process of issuing hundreds of contacts and encouraged “good contractors who are looking for work” to submit their paperwork to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

He said his office was successful in its implementation of a new system that would protect the “integrity” of the process of identifying cases that required government help.

Mr Gibson stated: “That is one of the reasons we didn’t move as quickly as we would have wanted to, simply because we wanted to put the systems in place first to make sure that at the end of the day we were able to fully rationalise, and explain and justify every action that we would have taken.

“We would have loved to have walked out there and one day have everything finished, unfortunately, in the real world it don’t happen that way.”

He continued: “NEMA, as it was constituted was not in a position to handle the repair and restoration at the level, when you look at the volume of destruction that occurred throughout the country, and so we had to strengthen NEMA itself and also straighten the policies and procedures that govern how we go about executing contracts and trying to bring assistance to those that qualify for it.”

Addressing repair efforts to date, Mr Gibson told reporters that government efforts were “well on the way”.

He said the government has given out “hundreds” of coupons for families that qualified for assistance for materials alone, that in addition to signed contracts to carry out repairs on government facilities that sustained damage during Matthew.

Mr Gibson stated: “We have signed contracts to repair homes for individuals who have qualified for materials and labour, that is contracts for homes in Andros, Grand Bahama and also on New Providence.

“We are also looking at concluding those, maybe eight to ten homes that we had to rebuild that were destroyed after Hurricane Joaquin that were left because (contractors) had so much work left to do.”

Another issue addressed by Mr Gibson on Monday was repair efforts at schools in Grand Bahama, a matter which the Christie administration has been criticised for by Free National Movement Deputy Leader Peter Turnquest in recent weeks.

Mr Turnquest told the press that lack of action from the PLP government towards the schools and students in Grand Bahama has been despicable following Hurricane Matthew.

Firing back at this criticism, Mr Gibson said Mr Turnquest was attempting to politicise a process to which the government had never been connected.

“The (Freeport) Container Port committed $200,000 to the repairs of those schools. The money never came to the government,” stated the Golden Gates MP.

“The Container Port wrote cheques directly to the contractors, Those contracts were executed several weeks ago, I don’t know the exact time and I am not sure when they are going to be completed.

“But those schools are being taken care of. (Mr Turnquest), being anxious to politicise the process sought to portray the view that the government had collected monies and didn’t start the repairs, when in fact, that didn’t happen.

“Like everything else, whatever is being done, we are now five, six months from the general election so everything is being politicised. But those schools, the repairs are well underway. Not only there, but at all the school in Grand Bahama the repairs are underway.

“Unfortunately in Grand Bahama compared to Nassau, where the contractors could have started before they were given the mobilisation funds, in Grand Bahama the economy didn’t allow the contractors to do that so they had to wait to be mobilise so their repairs are taking a bit longer than the ones here in New Providence.”

Hurricane Matthew left large sections of New Providence, Andros and Grand Bahama devastated in October.