The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Government has been urged to establish a disaster contingency fund, the Chamber of Commerce’s chairman arguing that it cannot be given “carte blanche to spend” every time there is major hurricane damage.

Gowon Bowe told Tribune Business: “What we cannot do is give the Government cart blanche to spend simply because it’s in the name of relief or in the name of goodwill for our common man.

“Three things should be considered. Given that we sit on the hurricane belt every year, we should be budgeting a hurricane contingency type fund so that, in the years that we don’t use it, it builds up, and the years that we need it, it can be expended.”

Mr Bowe added: “If we don’t have that contingency fund we should be looking at curtailing other expenditure that may be seen as discretionary spending, but certainly looking at tightening the belt in other areas so that our overall expenditure does not increase by the assessment of what it needs to rebuild.”

Prime Minister Perry Christie said last week that initial assessments of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Joaquin had pegged the cost at well over $60million.

This figure, he said, was expected to increase as the Ministry of Finance continues to receive additional assessments.

Mr Christie said the amount needed to cover the recovery and repair phase was likely to be funded via borrowing from either the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), financing from the People’s Republic of China or by other traditional sources.

Mr Bowe told Tribune Business there needs to be a clear understanding of how extra Government revenue is being spent.

“I think the Government did very early on say that all excess VAT collection should be paid against the Government debt. If I use the VAT revenue to pay straight to the debt, that’s great, but it means that I still run my high deficit, which means I borrow to replace the shortfall,” he added.