The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

THE Minnis administration's mid-year budget is "woefully deficient", charged Golden Isles MP Vaughn Miller, insisting government did not do enough to show it was prepared for the impending 2020 hurricane season.

Speaking in the House of Assembly yesterday, the independent member of Parliament said there was no doubt in his mind that the government maintained a "lackadaisical attitude" toward hurricane preparedness, despite having to grapple with the devastation of Hurricane Irma years ago. That storm ravaged Ragged Island in September 2017 and the small island has since struggled to return to normal.

Mr Miller said his main concern was money had not been sufficiently allocated to ensure the preservation of human life or that the country will be equipped for another storm like Hurricane Dorian impacting the Bahamas. His concerns were compounded by there being no allocation for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in the mid-year budget.

Mr Miller's rebuke of the Minnis administration drew rebuttal from several government members of Parliament. Among them was Finance Minister and East Grand Bahama MP Peter Turnquest who maintained that this was not a matter of a lack of planning but of responding to the sheer magnitude of devastation that exceeded the country's financial means. He added that NEMA's allocation had come under that of the Office of the Prime Minister.

"Dorian snuffed out the lives of many Bahamians and residents alike, men women and children as well as caused tremendous damage to property and infrastructure in Abaco and Grand Bahama," Mr Miller said during his parliamentary address yesterday.

"From the instructive perspective, Mr Speaker, there is no doubt in my mind that the government having seen previously the utter devastation in Ragged Island caused by Hurricane Irma still maintained a lackadaisical attitude toward hurricane preparedness that had prevailed for decades in our county and was thus caught off guard and unable to do anything to assist people in saving their lives in Abaco and Grand Bahama.

"It is in this vain that I find this supplementary budget woefully deficient."

"My concern is that in all these presentations, discussions, deliberations, calculation, projections there was nothing - no allocation whatsoever that deals with protecting human life in the face of the hard cold fact that the 2020 hurricane season begins in a little over three months from now on June 1, one month before this supplementary budget expires on June 30.

"There is nothing in this budget that addresses this instructive aspect of Hurricane Dorian, which is hurricane preparedness. The government is doing much to repair after the hurricane while failing dismally to prepare before the hurricane," Mr Miller continued.

Works Minister Desmond Bannister took issue with this statement saying there was a group in his ministry mainly of senior engineers that begins preparation at the end of every hurricane season. This group he said had also been in continuous discussions with NEMA.

For his part, Mr Turnquest said as it concerned financial preparation, the government laid its risk mitigation strategy across various instruments from credit lines to the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance and the country's own disaster relief fund.

"It is important for everybody in this country to understand and appreciate that the reason why we are going to be borrowing money is chiefly because of the ravages of Hurricane Dorian," Mr Bannister told the House. "That's not an issue of preparation. It's an issue of challenges that we see in Abaco when we see the utter destruction (and) when we go to East End Grand Bahama and how the Bahamian people are suffering.

"So in this money that we're borrowing is money for Bahamas Power and Light so that they can generate power and restore in Abaco and the cays. In this budget is million and millions of dollars for the clean up effort in Abaco and Grand Bahama. The money of this budget is for the Bahamian people and to restore our country. It is chiefly about restoring the country."

Still, Mr Miller said was not convinced that the government had gone far enough.

"There is not enough in this budget to suggest that funds are to be expended to sufficiently save lives from potential perils of a Category Five hurricane.

"This seemingly lackadaisical attitude of successive governments mere weeks before hurricane threats begin bring to mind the parable that Jesus gave relative to the 10 virgins."

Mr Miller also criticised the preparedness of hurricane shelters to withstand strong winds, insisting most were not structurally sound and could not weather 20ft sea surges.

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