Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has stressed that the materials received are for one purpose only.
The building materials that arrived here from the Jamaican company, Tank-Weld is to be used in the repair and construction of homes for persons in the red and orange zones.
According to Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, since the quantity of building materials arrived here, members of government have been ‘bombarded’ by requests for some of the items from persons from all over country.
The assignment of the EC$5 million worth of items cannot be assigned generally because they are needed to finish the repair work to homes destroyed during the eruption of La Soufrière and subsequent passage of Hurricane Elsa in 2021, Gonsalves said while speaking on radio on October 5.
He explained that there had been a shortage of some building materials available locally, regionally and even globally and that while the government was able to source some building materials here, others had to be sourced at the Jamaican company.
The prime minister further explained that government was not able to source all the materials it requested saying that some types of lumber was not available.
According to Gonsalves, there were initially 700 houses assessed to be repaired, however this number had ballooned to about 1,400 following a subsequent assessment.
Repairs have been done to close to 800 homes so far, but there was still a lot of work to be done.
“So, the first thing I want is for individuals who are not in the red and orange zone to have a little more patience,” Gonsalves said.
He said that he was aware that there were some persons living outside the red and orange zones and whose homes needed some work.
But he asked for those persons to be patient because the general assignment of the materials cannot take place in the way the demands are being made because the materials were needed to make the repairs.
Source : Dayle Dasilva for the Vincentian