Gov’t allocate J$5 billion from disaster financing resources to immediate hurricane relief
Vanassa McKenzie / Our Today
Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke says the government will allocate someJ$5 billion from the country’s disaster financing resources to address the immediate relief and recovery efforts following Hurricane Beryl.
Clarke made this disclosure on Tuesday (July 23) in the House of Representatives.
“We plan to disburse J$1.3 billion to the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation to finance programmes announced by Prime Minister [Andrew Holness] last week, and we plan to disburse J$1 billion to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security from these resources to finance the programmes that the Minister of Labour will shortly describe and detail,” Clarke advised Parliamentarians.
The finance minister noted that any expenditure beyond the J$5 billion allocation that falls into this fiscal year will be financed through donations.
“The donations that have been pledged so far, if you add for the UN [United Nations], are J$2.5 million, $200 thousand from the US government, $250 thousand from the CAF [Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean], which is the multilateral bank that services the Caribbean and Latin America, IDB [International Development Bank] has promised $200 thousand, and several other entities, the CDB [Caribbean Development Bank] has promised $200 thousand. If you add just those, we would be already approximating $700 million, so donations could well get to a million,” Clarke explained.
He, however, noted that donations can be specific as to what they can be used for.
Additionally, the minister said all expenditures undertaken in relation to Hurricane Beryl will be represented in the first supplementary estimates to be tabled later this year.
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