Grena­da’s Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell said Tues­day he re­mains “un­apolo­getic” to­wards pro­vid­ing all the as­sis­tance his ad­min­is­tra­tion could muster with re­spect to the sis­ter is­lands of Car­ri­a­cou and Pe­tite Mar­tinique, as the coun­try con­tin­ues to grap­ple with the fi­nan­cial as­pect of the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Beryl last week.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence, Mitchell said that the gov­ern­ment is ap­pre­cia­tive of the ef­forts shown by re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ments, as well as re­gion­al and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and or­gan­i­sa­tions, in deal­ing with the dev­as­ta­tion caused by the hur­ri­cane when it swept through the Wind­ward Is­land last Mon­day, leav­ing a trail of death and de­struc­tion.

“There is no doubt that this dis­as­ter will have a ma­jor im­pact on the fis­cal and fi­nan­cial and eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion of Grena­da. We are talk­ing of hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in loss­es and hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars to re­build.”

“This is go­ing to be a long and dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion. We are ex­plor­ing all op­tions as to how we will fi­nance the clean-up, the re­lief ef­forts and the re­build­ing,” Mitchell said.

He added: “We need to em­pha­sise very ear­ly that the re­build­ing must have re­silience fac­tored in­to it.”

He said the Min­istry of Fi­nance is meet­ing this week with, “some of our in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al part­ners, in­clud­ing the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank, the World Bank, the IMF… And we are al­so as­sess­ing whether we would need to sus­pend the op­er­a­tion of the Fis­cal Re­silience Act.”

The gov­ern­ment has re­pealed the Fis­cal Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty Act (2015) re­plac­ing it with the Fis­cal Re­silience Act (2023). It is de­scribed as a more sim­pli­fied and less rigid leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing for greater flex­i­bil­i­ty for the gov­ern­ment to man­age the econ­o­my and im­ple­ment its trans­for­ma­tion agen­da.

Mitchell al­so said the gov­ern­ment would be, “look­ing at what fis­cal in­cen­tives the gov­ern­ment will pro­vide to per­sons who wish to re­build, re­pair their homes, or per­sons who sim­ply need food stuff or oth­er ameni­ties to con­tin­ue liv­ing.”

The PM said his gov­ern­ment an­tic­i­pates that fur­ther an­nounce­ments will be made lat­er this week or ear­ly next week re­gard­ing the fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion con­fronting Grena­da.

He said that the gov­ern­ment has in place cat­a­stroph­ic risk in­sur­ance which has been trig­gered and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Caribbean Cat­a­stro­phe Risk In­sur­ance Fa­cil­i­ty (CCRIF) will be on the is­land lat­er this week.

“We ex­pect an­nounce­ments will be made in re­la­tion to what com­pen­sa­tion Grena­da will be paid as a re­sult of the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Beryl,” he said.

“We can­not re­pair and build new or re­pair old build­ings with­out en­sur­ing that we com­ply with strict build­ing codes that al­low us to min­imise loss­es aris­ing from these hur­ri­canes. We al­so need to ap­pre­ci­ate that the hur­ri­canes are not go­ing away,” he not­ed.

PM Mitchell said all in­di­ca­tions are that the hur­ri­canes will be­come stronger and more fre­quent, with a re­al risk of them hap­pen­ing ear­ly in the hur­ri­cane sea­son that runs from June to No­vem­ber.

“So, part of our fi­nanc­ing and re­cov­ery ef­forts must fo­cus on en­sur­ing that we build re­silient in­fra­struc­ture and that we build re­silient homes and oth­er build­ings to with­stand not just hur­ri­canes or the oth­er chal­lenges that we face in this part of the world.”

PM Mitchell said the up­date on the fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion next week will in­clude the sources of fund­ing for the re­lief and re­build­ing:

“What pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives the gov­ern­ment in­tends to take in terms of our ex­ist­ing debt oblig­a­tions, in­clud­ing whether we will seek can­cel­la­tions, write-offs, debt re­fer­rals or debt re­struc­tur­ing.”

He said the up­date al­so would en­tail what would be Grena­da’s re­la­tions with the World Bank and the IMF, as well as “pro­vid­ing an up­date on grant fi­nanc­ing and as­sis­tance we have re­ceived so far … and we will al­so pro­vide an up­date on the ac­tu­al dam­age as­sess­ment and im­pact.”

The Grena­da PM said while the gov­ern­ment is al­ready con­sid­er­ing what fis­cal in­cen­tives to give na­tion­als to help them re­cov­er from the hur­ri­cane, he want­ed to re-em­pha­sise, “that we will not tol­er­ate per­sons who are not im­pact­ed and gain­ing by schem­ing or tak­ing ad­van­tage of the fis­cal in­cen­tives that the gov­ern­ment will an­nounce”. —ST. GEORGE’S, Grena­da (CMC)