The Tribune

REBUILD Bahamas spent $573,926 helping to reconstruct or restock businesses in five islands and re-float fishing vessels in the southern Bahamas devastated by Hurricane Joaquin.

According to a press release, with Hurricane Joaquin efforts nearing completion, Rebuild Bahamas re-engaged stakeholders to assess needs and begin fund-raising restoration efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew.

“Rebuild Bahamas, a partnership between the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Confederation and the Rotary Clubs of The Bahamas, flew into action immediately following the passage of Matthew,” said Edison Sumner, Chamber CEO. “As soon as planes could get into Andros and Grand Bahama, we had teams on the ground conducting interviews, photographing damage, checking businesses that were impacted and we are working on compiling the costs associated with repairs right now.”

Damage from Matthew, which blew through the northwestern Bahamas on October 6-7 with winds of up to 145 miles an hour and strong storm surges that caused widespread flooding, has been estimated by the government and insurers to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This estimate far exceeds the damage of Hurricane Joaquin that struck in early October 2015. Repercussions of Matthew are more extensive because the storm struck heavily populated sections of New Providence as well Grand Bahama and portions of North Andros.

According to Gowon Bowe, Chamber chairman and a member of several disaster-recovery related boards, there is recovery and rebuilding activity at every level.

“While several organisations have been working to assist with meeting emergency and immediate needs of individuals, some of whom do not even have a roof over their heads, Rebuild Bahamas is trying to get affected businesses back up and running as fast as possible so people can get back to work and repair supplies are available especially for those areas hardest hit,” Mr Bowe said.

Rotary was first to get emergency supplies to hard-hit areas and will again partner with the Chamber for the Rebuild Bahamas effort.

Rebuild Bahamas issued its report of its recovery and rebuilding efforts on September 5, 2016. The report points to successes – 48 businesses or enterprises that were helped. It was also frank about the challenges the effort faced; approximately three times the number of applicants who were assisted did not qualify because they did not have a current business licence or other government qualifications. The Ministry of Finance has already indicated a mechanism whereby this will be less of a hindering factor for the Hurricane Matthew relief and recovery efforts.

Rebuild Bahamas’ single largest regret was that no business took advantage of $250,000 set aside by the Bahamas Entrepreneurial Venture Fund for short term loans.

“Businesses just did not want to borrow even at very low interest rates with extremely favourable terms,” said Mr Sumner.

The report also noted that Rebuild Bahamas would seek longer term solutions in conjunction with the insurance industry to help small to medium size businesses obtain affordable insurance coverage.