House repairs to be completed before hurricane season

The repairs to houses damaged during the passage of Hurricane Elsa last July will be completed in time for the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season.

That assurance has been given by Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance Dwight Sutherland who told Parliament on Tuesday that the Government has already completed work on 60 per cent of the damaged houses.

He said it is estimated that the remainder will be done by the end of June.

Sutherland said while the number of repairs and rebuilds stood at 1 341 at the end of December 2021, that increased to about 1 530 up to January this year.

“We are still battling as a Government to finalise repairs and rebuilds as a result of the act of God that impacted this country significantly and in a negative way. We have the Urban Development Commission (UDC), Rural Development Commission (RDC) and the National Housing Corporation (NHC) –they are the three institutions responsible for the repairs as a result of the freak storm and Hurricane Elsa,” the Housing Minister said as he contributed to debate on the Supplementary Estimates No. 10 2021-2022.

“. . . When we went across the length and breadth of the country we found that some of the houses were in a state of disrepair and we had to install hurricane straps and repair and rebuild houses to a state that they can withstand a category one or category two hurricane. And the state that we are at now, as a Government, we have seen tremendous progress from St Lucy to Christ Church to St Philip with respect to the repairs.”

Sutherland said the majority of the $14.9 million being allotted to his Ministry in the supplementary will be used to fund the house repairs.
anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb