$18-b Hurricane Melissa school repair bill

MONTEGO BAY, St James — Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon has revealed that it will cost $18 billion to repair damage done to schools during last October’s onslaught by Hurricane Melissa.

But despite the big repair bill, Morris Dixon says the money is available with fierce competition for other resources the reason for the slow pace of repairs.

Speaking Monday afternoon during the opening day of the 11th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James, Morris Dixon said that after the Category 5 storm her ministry conducted an extensive costing exercise to assess recovery needs and how much it would cost.

“It is $18 billion. And I’m very happy to tell you that the Ministry of Finance has allocated $18 billion for us to do it,” she revealed.

This is the first time a figure is being publicly provided for the storm’s overall impact on the country’s schools.

A month after Melissa, Cabinet approved $500 million to be disbursed to educational institutions so they could clean up debris and set up temporary spaces to minimise disruptions to learning. At the time it was said that more than 40 technical workers were assessing the damage, information that would then guide decisions on the way forward.

In March, pointing to the almost 700 schools not yet repaired, chairman of the Education Transformation Oversight Committee Dr Adrian Stokes urged the Government to consider inviting private sector entities to use pension funds to rebuild the plants and lease them back to the State. But for the education minister, there are bigger problems than funding. On Monday, she sought to explain some of the reasons for the slow progress.

“When your family calls you and tells you that the schools not being rebuilt quickly enough, it’s not because we don’t have the funds to do it. It’s because everything is happening at the same time. And that’s led to labour shortages and equipment shortages,” explained Morris Dixon.

While presenting a slideshow of severely damaged educational institutions, the minister explained that the Government, and the general public, are currently competing for the same limited resources to restore properties to their former glory.

“All of this that you’re seeing is not easy. It means we’re working with contractors, but those same contractors are rebuilding houses, they’re rebuilding businesses, and also doing the schools. So you can understand the pressure that’s there,” Morris Dixon outlined.

More importantly, the minister noted, the Government’s focus is on rebuilding with resilience in mind.

“The schools can’t just be rebuilt to what was there before, or else the next hurricane, they’re gone again. So we had to do new building codes for schools,” stated Morris Dixon.

“Where you could have just put back the zinc, you can’t. You’re no longer allowed to do that. It means repairs will take longer, it will cost more, but in the long run, our students will have a better infrastructure. We have to get it right this time,” she argued.

The education minister urged those attending the event to spread the word of how the country’s educational system weathered the storm and earning, she said, kudos from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“Many schools reopened under tents or tarpaulins, but getting students back was the priority,” she said.

“One thing you should always tell people is that after a one-in-100-year hurricane, where hundreds of our schools were damaged, within 90 days, all of our schools were open. That is an amazing feat,” argued Morris Dixon.