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The opposition New Democratic Party met on Monday to look at the work that they can do to get relief supplies into SVG, in addition to those being provided to other entities, including the Government.
President of the NDP and Leader of the Opposition, Arnhim Eustace, told I-Witness News that his party has some proposals and was already in contact with organization overseas.
Eustace said he was concerned about the extent of damage in homes because of very high floodwaters.
He said there was an unusual situation in which many household appliances, and school supplies were destroyed in homes.
“And these are not items that will normally attract donor funding, and we have discussed a particular proposal for the replacement of such items”. The Government would identify those persons and agree that if somebody from the diaspora or a friend from abroad sends them a replacement, these should come in with duty free concessions,” Eustace said.
“We think it is very important because the absence of these items will make life very difficult,” he said, adding, “I am particularly concerned with the schools and the schoolbooks.”
Eustace said visited about 40 homes and in almost each of which schoolbooks were destroyed.
He said while this will have to be addressed, it might be more difficult, adding that he is not sure that schoolbooks are still available at this time of year, or how quickly they can be sourced ahead of the next school term, which begins early January.
He reiterated his proposal for concessions on replacement appliances, adding, “The general infrastructural damage, we know how that is to be dealt with. There will be donor assistance to deal with that and I’ll support all efforts aimed at getting that donor assistance.”
The government has put preliminary estimates of the overall damage at “hundreds of millions of dollars”.