Seventy-three per cent of the homes damaged from Hurricane Elsa in July of 2021 have either been fully or partially repaired.
Senior Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for infrastructural projects and town planning matters Dr William Duguid delivered this update in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, as he tabled an amendment to the Catastrophe Fund Act.
“Of those 1746 houses, between the Urban Development Commission, Rural Development Commission and National Housing Corporation, they have been able to do 554, and started 537. So 73 per cent of those houses have actually been either started or completed.”
Duguid explained that even outside of the complete rebuilds done or being worked on, the Government had assisted 213 households with the materials necessary for home owners to manage their own repairs in order to move the process along more speedily.
He added, “If a category one hurricane, for a short period of time, caused $108 million in damage, we as a nation have to understand how important design and resilience are for us.”
The senior Government Minister explained that the changes to the Catastrophe Fund Act would not only assist authorities in the aftermath of disasters, but would make provisions for the preparation period as well.
He told the Lower Chamber that the change would allow for payments to be made to agencies such as the National Housing Corporation, Urban Development Commission, Rural Development Commission for their work in relation to the ‘freak’ storm and Hurricane Elsa. He noted that in the past, the fund made payments to businesses and individuals, but never en bloc as the amendment now allows.
“The second and more important part to my mind, is to be able to give people an opportunity to prepare in advance of a catastrophe,” Duguid explained to the Chamber.
Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance, Dwight Sutherland also spoke during the session, and revealed that the current administration was not only covering the repair costs for homes affected, but had also taken on the task of feeding persons currently being housed as they waited for repairs to be completed on their homes.
“[The Ministry of] People’s Empowerment has expended $930,000 so far. The projections to the end of the year if they keep these persons in accommodation, would be $1 million dollars in expenditure.
“The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security estimates that between July 2021 and August 2022, it would have expended approximately $673,000 on supplying food to the various communal accommodations. The ministry will spend an average of $35,000 per month to facilitate the purchase of food required between September and December 2022.”