“Government has done an excellent job in responding to this disaster, ”
Minister of Finance Hon. Camillo Gonsalves said this country has done a tremendous job of rebuilding, despite its small size and the level of devastation caused by the passage of Hurricane Beryl.
Speaking at the launch of the Beryl Resilience and Recovery (Berry) Project on Monday, Minister Gonsalves said the World Bank had estimated the initial loss and damage at 875 million EC, however, after a full assessment was completed, it proved to be in excess of one (1) billion dollars.
The Finance Minister noted that with the damage to Housing, Fisheries, Agriculture sectors, Tourism and Education infrastructure, it was determined that Hurricane Beryl had wiped out one third of this country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“In a small country with a small economy …one third of our GDP, 20 per cent of our population [affected] and one year later, we have restored housing to over 4 thousand affected people, we have reduced people in those touristic accommodations from over a thousand to just a couple hundred, we have restored electricity, almost throughout St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we have restored water almost throughout the entirety of SVG….Government has done an excellent job in responding to this disaster,” said Minister Gonsalves.
The Finance Minister also noted that in the rebuilding process, Government has ensured that they build back better as this is the era of climate change.
” We have to build a St. Vincent and the Grenadines that is resilient, that is responsive, that is nimble and that can stand up and face down these cataclysmic events and we are well underway to doing that, we are doing that as a disaster response mechanism,” Minister Gonsalves said.