Government officials have uncovered a vast abuse of the system put in place last year to carry out hurricane rebuilding efforts, according to the Minister of Housing and National Insurance Shane Gibson.
ﾓThe rebuilding efforts have been extremely successful, but we have also had widespread abuse,ﾒ he admitted. ﾓPeople have given misleading informationﾅThey may say that no one is working, but we may find out that someone [in the household] is actually working. They may have said that they needed six bundles of shingles when they only needed one.ﾒ
ﾓBut it was most widespread in Grand Bahama,ﾒ he added.
Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne left destructive footprints on The Bahamas; tiny pockets of communities in the Family Islands were ravaged, whole neighbourhoods were devastated and peopleﾴs lives were torn apart.
The government has been assisting residents who were having a hard time rebuilding on their own. Those who qualified for the social assistance were given up to $2,500 worth of materials and labour per household.
Minister Gibson said the reconstruction of private households in San Salvador, Abaco, Eleuthera and Cat Island, for instance, is between 90 and 95 percent complete.
ﾓMost persons who complain now about not being assisted are the ones you would find who want assistance above and beyond what the system allows them,ﾒ Minister Gibson said.
Soon after the government got its programme of assistance up and running, especially in islands like Grand Bahama, various citizens were hired to help with evaluations of individual residential structures that were damaged.
The Housing Minister said those persons who were sent out to personally assess the situation were complicit in the abuse in some circumstances.
ﾓWe need to fine tune the system to make sure we are able to help everyone who needs assistance, but to also make sure that we minimize the chance of having persons abuse the system and in a small society like The Bahamas it is difficult to get around that,ﾒ he said.
The Director of Public Works Collin Marshall reported soon after the storm that out of 5,000 houses sampled in one part of Grand Bahama 1,700 of the structures were deemed unusable and 600 were actually destroyed.
He attributed the problem primarily to substandard construction.
Comparatively, houses on other Family Islands were minimally affected.
An evaluation by structural engineers and other technical teams from the Department of Works revealed that in Acklins, the Berry Islands, Cat Island, Eleuthera, Mayaguana, Rum Cay and San Salvador, 75 structures were rendered unusable and 33 were destroyed.
Through the National Disaster Relief Fund, which was activated in the immediate aftermath of hurricanes Frances and Jeanne, the government has been able to put more than $4.7 million in contributions to good use. More than half of the amount was spent on the Family Islands to pay for direct expenses related to the hurricane recovery effort.
Another $1.7 million was used to purchase supplies which were disbursed to victims of the storms.
Rebuilding from one storm is hard enough, but trying to pick up the pieces after the menace of two fierce hurricanes is down right gruelling, according to many involved in the ongoing task.
Restoring normalcy to the lives of hundreds of residents who suffered the worst hurricane devastation almost seven months ago has been an arduous task, officials have said.
Tameka Lundy, The Bahama Journal
