KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Eight 40-foot con­tain­ers packed with re­lief sup­plies were ex­pect­ed to leave the Port of Point Lisas yes­ter­day evening for hur­ri­cane-hit Ja­maica, as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sent her love and sup­port to the coun­try she de­scribed as be­ing “dear to her heart.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar vis­it­ed the PLIPDE­CO ware­house in Point Lisas, where work­ers were load­ing the con­tain­ers sched­uled to ar­rive in Ja­maica on Sun­day. Lat­er that day, while speak­ing at a UNDP event in St Clair, she said she launched the hur­ri­cane re­lief dri­ve over the week­end and mo­bilised min­is­ters and stake­hold­ers to co­or­di­nate the na­tion­al re­sponse.

She said it has long been her gov­ern­ment’s prac­tice to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Caribbean neigh­bours dur­ing crises, not­ing that Cu­ba and Haiti are al­so in­clud­ed in the ini­tia­tive. She in­vit­ed the UNDP to join the re­gion­al re­lief ef­fort.

“You may not know, Ja­maica is very close to me. I lived there for 14 years. My hus­band and I were stu­dents at UWI, Mona, and then I was very blessed; I be­came a lec­tur­er at UWI, Mona. So I have 14 years of liveli­hood there, so part of what I am in my ear­li­er years, I have been mould­ed part­ly by Ja­maica,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

De­spite spec­u­la­tion of a diplo­mat­ic rift with­in Cari­com, Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­firmed that T&T re­mains unit­ed with its re­gion­al part­ners. She said she had spo­ken di­rect­ly with Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness, whom she de­scribed as “a strong leader”, and ex­pressed love and sol­i­dar­i­ty with him and the Ja­maican peo­ple.

Thank­ing cor­po­rate part­ners and cit­i­zens for their con­tri­bu­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar en­cour­aged con­tin­ued do­na­tions. She said all 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly were in­struct­ed to es­tab­lish drop-off points for re­lief items.

She said ships sail to Ja­maica every Thurs­day and urged peo­ple to give, even if they can on­ly spare a bag of rice or a pack of flour.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said an in­ter­min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee was es­tab­lished to over­see the re­lief dri­ve. The com­mit­tee, which met on Mon­day and Tues­day, com­prised min­is­ters from key port­fo­lios, in­clud­ing For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen.

Al­so par­tic­i­pat­ing were rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion, and the wider cor­po­rate sec­tor.

Sobers told Guardian Me­dia at the ware­house that the first ship­ment was or­gan­ised with­in 24 hours. He said the Ja­maican Gov­ern­ment will co­or­di­nate lo­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion, while T&T will con­tin­ue send­ing aid to Cu­ba and Haiti, which were al­so im­pact­ed by the hur­ri­cane.

He added that the Prime Min­is­ter was deeply moved by the dev­as­ta­tion in Ja­maica.

“This demon­strates that Trinidad and To­ba­go stands shoul­der to shoul­der with our Cari­com broth­ers and sis­ters. As the Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed, Ja­maica is ex­treme­ly close to her heart, and we will en­sure that we stand with Ja­maica in this time of need,” Sobers said.

He said the needs list in­cludes hard­ware sup­plies, bed­ding, san­i­tary and clean­ing prod­ucts, med­ical items, mat­tress­es, and bot­tled wa­ter.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Hol­ness fol­low­ing the dev­as­ta­tion caused by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.

“My broth­er, I share your pain in wit­ness­ing the de­struc­tive force of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa up­on my broth­ers and sis­ters in a place so dear to me,” Row­ley said.

“As a man of faith, I know you will pro­vide the in­spi­ra­tion need­ed to re­build. Trinidad and To­ba­go will stand at the fore­front to as­sist. To­geth­er, we are stronger.”

He al­so de­scribed re­cent neg­a­tive re­marks about Cari­com as “hurt­ful” and con­trary to re­gion­al uni­ty, urg­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion in the fight for cli­mate eq­ui­ty.

Padarath said T&TEC and WASA tech­ni­cians were on stand­by to as­sist with util­i­ty restora­tion. He added that T&T’s co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse, with sup­port from France via Mar­tinique, re­flects re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty. Padarath al­so clar­i­fied that the Prime Min­is­ter’s ear­li­er com­ments on Cari­com had been tak­en out of con­text, reaf­firm­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to the re­gion­al bloc.

Mean­while, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment has launched a na­tion­al col­lec­tion dri­ve through all 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions, run­ning un­til next Tues­day from 8 am to 4 pm. Cit­i­zens are en­cour­aged to drop off list­ed items at Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units or make mon­e­tary do­na­tions to the des­ig­nat­ed re­lief fund through the min­istry’s First Cit­i­zens Bank Na­tion­al Dis­as­ter Re­lief Fund, Ac­count No. 3154684.

The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce (Am­Cham), En­er­gy Cham­ber, T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), and Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce have al­so joined forces to co­or­di­nate pri­vate-sec­tor con­tri­bu­tions. Do­na­tions can be made to the Joint Cham­bers Re­lief Fund at First Cit­i­zens Bank, Point Lisas (Chequing Ac­count No. 2818368 or Sav­ings No. 2818367), or dropped off at PLIPDE­CO Sheds 1 and 2, Point Lisas.

TTMA of­fi­cials said pal­lets of goods are be­ing as­sem­bled for ship­ment, while cash do­na­tions will help pur­chase pri­or­i­ty re­lief sup­plies.

Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider Dig­i­cel al­so an­nounced that all calls to Ja­maica will be free un­til 3 No­vem­ber, with a dai­ly cap of 60 min­utes. CEO Pieter Verkade said the move is meant to keep fam­i­lies con­nect­ed dur­ing re­cov­ery.

The In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) ex­tend­ed prayers for strength and re­silience among those af­fect­ed.

“We pray for their bless­ings of strength and for­ti­tude in this most try­ing cir­cum­stance,” said IRO first vice-pres­i­dent Pan­dit Lloyd Mukram Sir­joo.

“May God be their strength as they re­build their lives.”