By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter 

krussell@tribunemedia.net

DONOR money received by the government from dozens of entities and neighbouring countries will only be used to assist those affected by deadly Hurricane Dorian, insisted Finance Minister Peter Turnquest yesterday.

According to Mr Turnquest this means the money will not be used to rebuild public infrastructure or as a means to pay for administrative costs.

While pledges and cash donations have been numerous, the National Emergency Management Agency has only physically deposited $2m in the bank, The Tribune was told yesterday.

When he referred to the issue yesterday, the deputy prime minister was adamant that the money would be used for its intended purpose.

He said to run the new Ministry of Disaster Preparedness, Recovery and Reconstruction, funding would be drawn from several places, including dormant accounts.

This as NEMA said yesterday the number of missing persons in the wake of Hurricane Dorian has drastically decreased from 1,300 to 608. After being crossed checked against shelter lists and other records, NEMA said 692 people were declared found.

However, the death toll associated with the storm increased to 54 after remains were found in The Mudd, Abaco, Police Commissioner Anthony Ferguson told The Tribune yesterday.

“Let’s be clear, it’s to fund the services that the ministry will provide,” Mr Turnquest said when he was asked if donations would fund the operations of the newly formed ministry.

“So for instance monies that were donated may be allocated to shelter; maybe designated for reconstruction of infrastructure that is critical to getting people back into those communities, that kind of thing. We are very careful and want to be very careful about how we utilise donor money in particular so I want to be clear about that.

“Donor money is going toward the intended purpose of assisting people, not for public infrastructure not for administrative costs. It is going to the people where it is intended to go, so I just want to be clear about that.

“We will use the loan money. We will use other resources from the other ministries as I spoke about to rebuild infrastructure and to cover the administrative costing.”

As for funding the new ministry, Mr Turnquest told reporters this will be done through a number of budgetary adjustments. But he explained that some of this ministry’s functions will draw from other ministries.

“… This ministry will have to draw on services from other ministries so for instance the Ministry of Works will have an integral part to play. The Ministry of Social Services will have an integral part to play and other areas where there is coordination that would be necessary.

“So a lot of the work that this ministry will do will be coordinating more so than actually doing things themselves, but to the extent that there is budgetary needs for them specifically there are a number of places that we can draw from.

“As you know we are taking funding from the international community through donors as well as through the contingent line of credit that we can draw down on as well as the dormant accounts fund. We are taking some money from that which as you know when we did the legislation was designated towards disaster relief. So we’ll take a combination of different funding sources to make sure the ministry has what it needs to be effective and carry out objectives.”

Mr Turnquest also told reporters that staffing needs for the new ministry would be fulfilled by drawing from the pool of employers currently in the public service.

Regarding the deaths, Health Minister Dr Duane Sands said the ministry intended to give a comprehensive break down on autopsies performed.

He said: “Some of them (were identified). We intend to give a more comprehensive breakdown of the number of persons who have had their autopsies completed, to say how many of them have been identified.

“For instance I believe that there are two persons in Grand Bahama that have not been identified and who remain unidentified and once identified and their autopsy and death certificate completed, their remains are turned over and have been turned over to their families in Abaco the number is less than that but I don’t have the exact number.

“What we would like to be able to do is using sanitised information obviously to protect the identities of those persons and their families to give the public an understanding of that total number, how many have been identified and are left to be identified,” Dr Sands said.