La Soufriere recovery would cost $1.1 billion to St Vincent

St Vincent/Dominica: Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Comrade Ralph Gonsalves, said that it would take about 40 to 50% GDP in the recovery of volcano crisis of La Soufriere in the country, which is accounted as EC $1.1 billion (Total GDP is EC $2.2 billion). “The properties which are in the red and orange zone and are at risk amount about the US $400 million.” Not all of the properties are anticipated to be destroyed, but World Bank has preliminarily estimated the damages in the red and orange zone is about the US $100 million. “It can be said that a direct cost of building infrastructures.” PM Gonsalves made this statement during a special show Annou Pale hosted by Dominica Prime Minister Dr Roosevelt Skerrit. PM Skerrit said that “Dominica stands in absolute solidarity with the people of our sister island. We have offered safe heaven here in Dominica for St Vincent nationals wishing to evacuate and will provide support in other tangible ways.” Prime Minister of Dominica, Dr Roosevelt Skerrit, expressed empathy with Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, amid the eruption of La Soufrière volcanic activities. PM Gonsalves expressed gratitude to the people of Dominica for their generosity and solidarity with St Vincent in the time of need. “It’s a long haul, and I don’t have illusions about it,” said PM Gonsalves while referring to the La Soufrière volcano. He added that internal and international agencies have come along in St Vincent to assess the situation, such as United Nations, CARICOM, RSS, OECS and others. All Caribbean colleagues have been very helpful in this crisis, “It is not an easy thing to house and feed 7,000 persons in 88 shelters (Mainly schools/churches) under quarantine. Then there are other 7,000 in private homes who have registered, and then there are people in the orange zone (below in the northwest area) who have not been evacuated. People there are suffering very difficult time as they do not have access to water, food and all other basic necessary services,” said PM Ralph Gonsalves.

“We have to provide 21,000 meals each day, 7,000 each for breakfast, lunch and dinner”

Fear of COVID19 outbreak

Divulging details, PM said that they have been providing about 6,000 packages once a week for people who are in homes and also those who are in the orange zone and there are about 250 homes. “The real challenges for us is COVID19, as we have large groups of people coming together in shelters. There is an enhanced risk of an outbreak as so many people are living together in the same place, and there won’t be any physical distancing.”

The big danger now is on the north-eastern side river valley as some rain has started to come and there would be mud-ash flows which are going have landslides in the area, “Because over 100 million cubic meters of material came out from volcano, not all of that landed in St Vincent. With the height and airflow, it went to Barbados, St Lucia, Grenada.”

Global Appeal Fund

Under the leadership of PM Ralph Gonsalves, United Nations launched a Global Appeal Fund to raise the US $29.2 million in response to La Soufrière volcano. “That is not even close to what we require in response to the crisis.” PM Gonsalves said that the UN and its subsidiary organisations are providing this money so that people could get necessary items or tools to clear the ash fall.

To do the humanitarian work in St Vincent, would require about EC $15 million every month. That just includes social and humanitarian support to the people. Besides, there would be an additional need of millions of dollars for housing, animal husbandry, agriculture and other major recovery projects. United Nations has asked some of the amounts, but it won’t be enough for St Vincent to get back on its feet.

“At the moment, we made two major decisions, first decision was made three years ago to establish a contingency fund. We put 1% on top of the VAT as a disaster levy. And, there was $3 a night on rooms called resilient levy for visitors. Till last year, we have raised to $50 million with the contingency fund and spend about $10 million in response to COVID19, so we have about $40 million for our humanitarian effort,” added St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister.

While replying to the question about how long this volcanic activity could last, Comrade said nobody knows, but in speaking terms, we have been informed that it might last for about 4 months.