Displaced coastal families to be resettled
By VonDez Phipps
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – Almost twenty days following the passage of Hurricane Omar, which ravaged coastal properties from Old Road to New Guinea, many residents have been given a promissory note of relocation that is expected to be fulfilled later today (Nov. 10).
25 families on the western coast, who had also been affected by the passage of Lenny in 1999, will benefit from the first phase of the Resettlement Programme after the ground-breaking ceremony scheduled for 3:00 this afternoon at Con Phipps Housing Project.
The programme, financed by the Government of St. Kitts-Nevis and The Republic of China on Taiwan, will provide homes ranging from EC$85 000 to EC$140 000 on 4 000 square feet of land provided by the local government.
The Resident Ambassador of the Republic of China on Taiwan to St. Kitts and Nevis, His Excellency Rong-Chuan Wu is scheduled to make a donation of US $200,000 to Prime Minister Douglas to assist in the financing of the resettlement programme.
Co–ordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and Head of the Hurricane Omar Resettlement Task Force, Carl Herbert, informed that in the first phase of the programme, 12 homes will be constructed for as many families. He explained that four homes will be built at Con Phipps in Half Way Tree and eight at Wingfield, Old Road for families from Half Way Tree, Verchild’s and Old Road. ~~Adz:Right~~
“An assessment was done on the area by officials trained in assessment damage and it was determined that a number of homes will need to be relocated. Some homes were damaged to the extent where they are no longer habitable, forcing families to share accommodation with families and friends.
“As a part of the recovery, after Omar, the government approached the Taiwanese government who agreed to assist in the resettlement programme. This is timely recognizing that persons have been displaced and there is an urgent need for it,” Herbert noted in an official release issued by the Press Secretary to the Prime Minister.
Herbert further stated that a similar damage assessment was done after Lenny, which caused much more damage to the coastline. But, when asked about granting resettlement to the coastal residents almost ten years ago, Herbert noted that he “can’t speak to what happened as follow-up”.
Main opposition party People’s Action Movement (PAM) leader Lindsay Grant had declared some two weeks prior that upon taking office his party would have immediately provided relief to the coastal residents on the western side of the island.
“These same families were put into this very same position just under ten years ago by the similarly unusual track of Hurricane Lenny in 1999 and were then promised by this Denzil Douglas Administration that they would be relocated to safer locations further inland.
They waited patiently and expectantly but in vain. This is the pattern of Labour; whenever there is a crisis, they are quick out of the blocks with a world of promises but as we have all seen in far too many instances, the promises given by this Labour government have about as much value as the rubbish and rubble that is now strewn along our western coastline,” Grant averred.
