Prime minister provides comprehensive blueprint for recovery efforts
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Contact: J. Hinkson Compton
Tuesday 30 November 2010 – Prime Minister, the Honourable Stephenson King, in his address to the nation, provided a comprehensive blueprint on government’s response to Hurricane Tomas. The prime minister said the well thought out strategic plan is encapsulated in four major elements.
“Firstly, to search for and rescue those in distress and in danger; secondly to ensure that the country was cleaned up and life returned to a state of normalcy within the shortest possible time, thirdly to provide relief to those in need, and finally to finance a reconstruction programme that would contain short, medium and long term elements.”
Prime Minister King drew the nation’s attention to his administration’s invocation of the Disaster Management Act so as to declare a state of national disaster; a National Water Emergency was also declared. During the address to the nation, the prime minister announced wide ranging measures designed to alleviate the plight of persons affected by Hurricane Tomas.
“Duty free concessions were granted on all relief supplies including water tanks, water purification equipment and supplies, including building material and secondly the annual barrel concessions at Christmas time were advanced to cover the period November 1, 2010 to January 31, 2011. Based on our assessment of the immediate needs we disseminated information to our regional and international partners, friendly countries, donor agencies and the Diaspora within a very short space of time.”
Organizations such as NEMO and the Red Cross were officially thanked during the address.
Prime Minister King called upon all citizens—free of any division—to play their part in speeding up the reconstruction of the country.
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