The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

THERE has been an improvement in the pace at which the government is providing assistance to persons negatively affected by Hurricane Matthew, Labour Minister Shane Gibson said yesterday.

Mr Gibson, the government’s Hurricane Matthew Czar, said a “restructuring” of the repair programme’s technical team has led to the appointment of an administrator to assist technical director Melanie Roach in the execution of the team’s mandate.

As a result, Mr Gibson said the number of vouchers issued in Andros has increased, and that “more work” is being done on that island, which he said he was “really concerned about” because there were persons in settlements there “who hadn’t gotten any relief at all.”

Mr Gibson also said hurricane relief efforts in New Providence is also “beginning to pick up.” However, he could not give a timeline as to when some semblance of normalcy would be returned to the lives of those reeling in Hurricane Matthew’s aftermath.

Hurricane Matthew devastated large sections of New Providence, Andros and Grand Bahama in October. In response, the government established a Hurricane Matthew repair programme on those three islands, which consists of a voucher system for physical home repairs, and a 180-day exigency order, which expires in April.

Last week, Mr Gibson said he was “disappointed” in the pace of the government’s hurricane relief efforts, stating that three months after the category four storm, the government has done a subpar job in meeting its goal of providing total relief to persons reeling in the hurricane’s aftermath.

At the time, Mr Gibson said he would meet with the Hurricane Matthew repair programme’s technical team with the aim to “revamping” the structure of the technical team to expedite the hurricane relief process.

When questioned outside of the Office of the Prime Minister yesterday for an update on the matter, Mr Gibson said: “I’ve seen where the numbers did increase. We did some restructuring in the areas. We have just agreed to appoint an administrator, a new person in the area to assist with administration. We had Melanie Roach there who was the technical director, and so we have strengthened the team in there, so we’ve now seen more work coming out, particularly in Andros, which I was really concerned about.

“Because we had a number of settlements who hadn’t gotten any relief at all. And so we’ve seen where quite a bit of vouchers went down there and in Nassau it’s beginning to pick up and so we’ve seen an improvement.”

Mr Gibson also said officials have already completed the designs of homes to be built on the coastline, and are now waiting on approval from the Ministry of Works and Urban Development before commencing construction.

When questioned on the decision to rebuild homes on the coastline, which is especially vulnerable to hurricanes, Mr Gibson said: “Well, residents don’t want to move. For those who want to move we will relocated them, and those who don’t want to move we can’t force them to move. They’ve been living there in some cases for two to three generations or family members living there, so if they insist they want to stay we didn’t want to pressure anybody to move.

“I mean there may come a time when we would have to do that as the government of the Bahamas or a government of the Bahamas would have to do that, because when you start putting your own life in jeopardy you put others as well.

“When you decide to stay on the coastlines, we hear hurricanes are coming and all of a sudden you realise we can’t stay anymore, then we have to send in a relief team to get you out, which means we are then putting the lives of those persons in jeopardy as well.

“And so I’m sure there will come a time when the government of the Bahamas would have to make it mandatory that in certain areas we’ll not allow homes to be built.”

In January, Mr Gibson told Parliament that contracts valued at some $3.5m had been issued for labour and materials to repair homes damaged by the category four storm last year.

At the time, Mr Gibson also revealed that the response to the loan programme for public officers and government employees for hurricane related repairs was “overwhelming,” totalling over $24m at the time. He said that number was equivalent to 5,128 loan approvals.

Additionally, Mr Gibson said at the time that the government had spent $10m on clean up activities up to December of last year and $1m to remove debris in Grand Bahama.

Mr Gibson also said at the time that just under $300,000 was spent in north Andros and $40,000 in central Andros.