Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

The government has aborted its plans to distribute vouchers for food supplies for persons who were affected by Hurricane Dean.

Kingsley Thomas, who is leading the recovery effort, said there had been a change of plan and the Government would instead be distributing vouchers to purchase building supplies.

"Based on the reports from ODPEM (Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management) food items have substantially returned to some normality," he told The Gleaner. "When it is decided by the Government, an appropriate announcement will be made for."

Mr. Thomas said the cheques would be distributed after the Ministry of Labour and Social Security has completed its islandwide house-to-house assessment, which is now being done.

Meanwhile, Alvin McIntosh, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, said the ministry's islandwide assessment would have to be extended.

He said the unstable weather condition across the island has hampered efforts by the investigators.

"Almost in every parish, theofficers have had to discontinue their investigations at around mid-afternoon so they are unable to be out in the field for the entire day because of the weather," he told The Gleaner.

Soldiers not available

He said the Jamaica Defence Force soldiers who assisted last week were unable to help this week because of their preparation for the general election to be held on Monday.

He said so far, some 20,000 householders have been assessed islandwide.

In the meantime, Mr. McIntosh said the ministry was continuing with the distribution of the one-off payment to beneficiaries on the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) and National Insurance Scheme (NIS) pensioners.

"For both PATH and NIS, cheques have been disbursed for both Kingston and St. Andrew, Portland and St. Thomas," he said. "And by tomorrow morning (today), cheques for St. Mary and St. Ann will be out."

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com