By Omar Anderson, Gleaner WriterCuba and the Bahamas have each received TT$3 million while St. Vincent and the Grenadines received TT$4 million.
SPECIAL MEETING
Announcements of the grants were made on Wednesday at a special meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. The grants came after Trinidad's Prime Minister Patrick Manning visited Jamaica on Monday to gain first-hand view of the extent of Hurricane Ivan's impact.
The CARICOM special meeting was held to seek ways in which the region could collaborate to assist member-states that suffered damage running into billions of dollars.
Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies represented Jamaica in Trinidad.
One of the suggestions coming out
of the meeting is for CARICOM to approach the World Bank to undertake a feasibility study to insure public infrastructure in CARICOM.
RESUSCITATING
Lorne McDonnough, Jamaica's High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, told The Gleaneryesterday that discussions at the meeting focused
on resuscitating Grenada's economy.
"As far as Jamaica was concerned, Minister Davies made a presentation which set out (the) damage (done)," he said. "The only thing he couldn't and didn't do was to quantify the damage."
Mr. Lorne added that the Finance Minister also briefed CARICOM heads
of the hurricane's impact on various sectors, including tourism and agriculture, and how these might result in the Government missing its fiscal targets.
Preliminary conclusions reached at the meeting included:
Establishing a pool of budgetary resources to assist Grenada in meeting its financial obligations for the next three months. A special meeting may be needed to look at the possibility.
Designing a plan to relocate Grenadian Advanced and CXC level students to other member-states
Need for the CARICOM-Grenada unit to plan the reconstruction of Grenada, in addition to responding to the emergency situation.
Approaching the international community for assistance for Grenada and to pool CARICOM guarantees to float a bond issue through the CDB.
Agreeing to support a call for a moratorium on Grenada's debt repayments.
Recommending that financial
assistance to Grenada be in the nature of grants and aid and not loans.
Urging the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to have an emergency session of its board of directors to consider appropriate flexible arrangements to assist Grenada in its hour of need.
Mandating officials to prepare a technical document in order to implement the above decisions.
