Hurricane Help in Limbo, Gov’t $2 Million stuck in bureaucracy

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, December 5, 2022 – Months after Hurricane Fiona passed over the Turks and Caicos islands and damaged some homes in the family islands and Grand Turk, government assistance has still not made its way to those who need it.

Washington Misick, TCI Premier made the revelation in the House of Assembly on December 1 in response to questions posed by Edwin Astwood, Leader of the Opposition.

“We are still trying to develop a framework to provide this assistance so at this stage no individual has benefited” he said.

There was no concrete timeline to when these people would get assistance or why the framework was taking so long to put together.

Yet the Premier said the framework was especially important as in some cases, people who did not really need the assistance were applying for the funds. He also said that manpower was an issue.

“We are developing a framework to assist [and] the leader of the opposition would know the challenges that we have as it relates to manpower and the capacity to quickly deal with a lot of these.”

In regards to when residents might be able to to get their share of the $2 million allocated to hurricane help, Premier Misick could not provide any assurance that the monies would be distributed before year end.