The Caribbean Development (CDB) has approved a package of US$11.435 million to the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) to finance a project to reduce the vulnerability to extreme rainfall and other climate change impacts of over 21 thousand people living in communities in Georgetown, Bridgetown and Marriaqua.
The package includes a loan of US$11.2 million for the upgrade of roads, bridges and river defences and slope stabilisation; a grant of US$175,000 for financing the cost of consultancy services for technical assistance for the enhancement of national early warning system; and a grant of US$60,000 for financing the cost of consultancy services for monitoring and evaluation.
This project is expected to reduce the vulnerability of the communities by adopting a proactive approach to reducing risk through the upgrading of road sections and bridge structures at critical locations and the upgrading and reconstruction of road sections to increase alternate routes for climate change adaptation.
In total, three bridges will be upgraded or reconstructed; 3.2km of roads will be built or upgraded and defences work will be carried out on over 708 metres of river.
There will also be institutional strengthening with respect to monitoring and evaluation, and building disaster risk management capacity through the integration of the national early warning system (NEWS) into the country’s comprehensive disaster management strategy.
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and President of CDB, Warren Smith, signed the agreement in St. Vincent on Wednesday during a meeting of the Board of Directors of the CDB.
Warren said: “The project for disaster risk is one we feel very strongly about. We know that St. Vincent is positioned geographically in a place where you suffer the risks of disasters taking place, and over the last few years, I think that CDB has pumped something like 20-odd million U.S. dollars into your country in response to those events.”
He noted that more than 20,000 persons are expected to benefit from the project, adding, “That’s no small impact.”
Gonsalves told reporters that the loan will finance the demolition and reconstruction of Dixon Bridge, Union River Bridge on the Windward Road, Union River Bridge at Chapmans, river defences and river training works at Union River, Zhenga River, and Yambou River.
The monies will also be used for road works at Gokool Road at Langley Park, Maroon Hill to Zhenga Bridge; engineering services, detail design, contract preparation, contract supervision and consultancy services, including the National Early Warning System (NEWS).
“We have been doing some work already on some designs. Those have to be completed a final design, and then we get the things going. Some of this work will be this year, and then next year,” Gonsalves said.
Whoop-dee-do! Money for SVG! Here is my favourite part of the use to which the money shall be put:
“There will also be institutional strengthening with respect to monitoring and evaluation, and building disaster risk management capacity through the integration of the national early warning system into the country’s comprehensive disaster management strategy.”
That right there is the hard-to-see line item to watch. It’s not like a bridge, big and bold, either there or it ain’t there. That right there is quicksand in salt water. I also notice that there is to be no explicit strengthening on the Leeward side of the island.
1. more debt that can never be repaid.
2. no mention of enforcing existing building codes and enacting new ones preventing construction in high flood risk areas, especially by squatters (who then cry for a new house when they are washed away after building in a gutter).
3. no mention of eradicating indiscriminate tree cutting in flood plains, a major cause of flooding.
Jeannine are you surprised to see EXPLICIT Room for funds drainage? After all, every road must have a drain and every pool of public funds must have the “quicksand in salt water” to suck out the amounts needed to line the politician and their cronies pockets. I would surmise that for every dollar in grants and loans our nation receives only about 40 percent is expended on the projects for which they are ear-marked. The other 60 percent goes to unduly enrich the politicians, their families and cronies.
Whoop-dee-do is right! The strength of the nation is directly related to the health of the nation. Our nationals do not have the means, facilities or resources to maintain their health. You dead if you go to the hospital and you dead if you don’t.
With the expectation of a new international airport (maybe), I was expecting to see something about allocation of monies to improve the disastrous healthcare system in SVG.
Think again Vinci, think again. You sick, you have big money or government position, catch a plane, go overseas. You get better. You sick, you poor, go to MCMH and die.
And that’s the way it is my friends.
Borrow, borrow, borrow! It says “grant” but what do we really think?