Hur­ri­cane-rav­aged Ja­maica must first of­fi­cial­ly re­quest as­sis­tance from Cari­com or fel­low re­gion­al is­lands be­fore it could be ren­dered. But up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness & Man­age­ment (ODPM) had re­ceived no in­struc­tions from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar nor its line min­is­ter, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, about any ef­fort to pro­vide re­lief.

"Up to this point, I have re­ceived no in­struc­tions from our po­lit­i­cal leader or the Na­tion­al?Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter," ODPM CEO Dr Stephen?Ram­roop told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day. The ODPM is ready and wait­ing, how­ev­er, and has al­ready packed four 40-foot con­tain­ers to send to Ja­maica, Ram­roop said.

The con­tain­ers are filled with items need­ed in com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by flood­ing and land­slides, in­clud­ing food sup­plies, land and so­lar-pow­ered lights and torch lights, he dis­closed. The PM, in a re­lease on Thurs­day evening, ex­pressed her con­do­lences to Ja­maica (two deaths re­sult­ed from Hur­ri­cane Sandy which pound­ed Ja­maica on Wednes­day) and said the T&T Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion.

There has been no new in­for­ma­tion from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter since.

Asked if the PM had made any state­ments con­cern­ing as­sis­tance for Ja­maica, com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Paige de Leon said, "Not as far as I'm aware. There has been no new in­for­ma­tion on the mat­ter." Ram­roop said the ODPM had re­ceived no re­quest for as­sis­tance for Ja­maica from the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA), a Cari­com body.

He said he had been in con­stant con­tact with his coun­ter­part in Ja­maica, Ronald Jack­son, head of that coun­try's Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Emer­gency?Man­age­ment (ODPEM) and was told they were deal­ing ad­e­quate­ly with the sit­u­a­tion.