The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Disaster Reconstruction Authority (DRA) needs at least a further $5.355m injection of taxpayer monies to complete Hurricane Dorian-related repairs for 3,735 homeowners.

The details, revealed in the Authority’s 2021 “progress report”, disclose that the $17.109m already allocated for the Small Home Repairs initiative will only cover 76 percent of the now-estimated $22.464m total cost that the exercise is now projected to incur.

The revised figures mean that the Small Homes Repair programme will be almost triple the originally-projected $8m cost, with work on the properties of some 1,090 homeowners yet to begin. There are also discrepancies, with the $5.355m figure only referring to the cost of repairs on those 1,090 homes. Given that there is a $437,288 shortfall on work already in train, the total need is $5.792m.

“The total amount of funding secured by January 2021 is $17.109m,” the report said. “This sum should serve to meet the needs of the 2,645 homeowners where work is in progress, though it leaves a gap of $5.355m needed to complete all work for all homeowners.”

Unaudited financials showed that some $8.9m has been spent to-date on repairing properties belonging to 2,645 homeowners. Some $8.209m has been set aside for future spending, but this will not cover the estimated $8.646m cost to complete work on these persons’ home.

Thus there is already an $437,288 funding shortfall for existing repairs, with the $5.355m needed to start work on the remaining 1,090 homes that have been approved for inclusion in the scheme.

“It soon became clear that the damage was even more extensive than what early evaluation suggested,” the DRA report said. “What had originally been estimated to cost approximately $8m was going to cost more than double that....

“While challenges continue we have been able to approve 3,735 homeowners for assistance in our northern islands and are currently completing 2,645 or 71 percent of those approved.”

The Small Home Repairs initiative, which was designed to assist Dorian victims who lacked homeowners/property insurance, makes up to $10,000 available for qualifying applicants to assist with the acquisition of necessary materials and labour.

Of 4,103 applications for assistance, some 278 have yet to be approved, which the Authority blamed on an inability to contact applicants or their failure to provide the necessary documentation.

Some $2.564m in accounts payable and accrued expenses were on its balance sheet at year-end 2020, of which some $414,434 was owed on the Small Home Repairs initiative.