The government has disbursed $5,222,325,000 in grants under the Restoration of Owner or Occupant Family Shelters (ROOFS) programme to assist families affected by Hurricane Melissa.

This was disclosed by Minister of Labour and Social Security, Pearnel Charles Jr., during the meeting of the Standing Finance Committee at Gordon House last Friday (March 6).

ROOFS is part of the overall Shelter Recovery Programme (SRP) and has been allocated an initial J$10 billion to assist households assessed as having sustained minor, major, or severe damage.

Under the SRP framework, individuals may access support through six initiatives–ROOFS grant, government‑led repair, partnership‑led repair, National Housing Trust (NHT) support, deployment of modular housing solutions, and relocation or regularisation.

“Once you have been assessed and verified it is our intention that you will fall under one of those elements,” Minister Charles Jr. said.

He noted that part of the verification process “is to send the listing to the spatial data experts for them to do…what we call cleaning of the list”, which is to mitigate against duplication.

“If you have one person getting more than they should get, then the others who are there to get cannot receive right? So, we have a process and I want to assure that it is a process which we have gone far and wide in trying our best to get as many persons assessed as possible,” he pointed out.

Charles Jr. noted that the assessment is now closed, but for persons with unique circumstances “we ask them to write to us or to write to the Members of Parliament so that you can get to us”.

“But in large part, we are now focused on addressing the more than 98,000 households that have been assessed and to make sure that those 98,000 households are verified, that they go through the process of cleaning and that they can receive their benefit as quickly as possible,” he stated.

He noted that while several persons have received benefits so far, “we have much more to go”.

“But again, it is a process. It’s the same staff that do the assessments, it’s the same staff doing the verification, the same staff doing the disbursement. So, we ask for patience as we move quickly,” the minister said.