Editorial – August 23, 2013
The following is an extract from July 3, 1998 – Vol. XIII No. 21 of The Montserrat Reporter. In an interview with Premier Meade in 2011, he shot down a suggestion that we should seek to recount the monies spent by HMG since the volcanic crisis began to more effectively address the way Montserrat goes forward with its Strategic Growth Plan.
This was in view of what Minister of State Allan Duncan had said about their desire to right the wrongs that have been done to a country that has suffered what no other country in the world has. The following if accepted as correct, then one need start from there, as far as the money dished out in support, with what was taken back. Surprise? The UK gets its returns out of what they give.
If there are any problems, and there are many, with our plan for the way forward it is simply that refusal to understand Montserrat in 1995 with between 10,000 – 12,000 people and the assets it enjoyed compared with what was salvaged and what is to do be done with it.
Following media enquiries, and calls from Chief Minister David Brandt for Britain to account for monies spent on the island, the local branch of the British Department for International Development revealed last month its expenditures for the past three years.
DFID reports some £59 million have been spent in Montserrat from July 1995 through March 1998.
- Budgetary Aid took the major portion, more than £16.4 million.
Other expenditures totaled:
- Emergency equipment and preparedness, £6.1 million;
- housing, £5.6 million;
- evacuation programs, £4 million;
- pre-crisis activities, £3.5 million;
- public administration, £3.1 million;
- jetty/port, £3 million; roads, £1.6 million;
- education, £1.4 million;
- training, £860,145;
- health, £613,032;
- energy, £535,506;
- private sector enterprise, £456,531;
- land surveying and planning, £233,312;
- natural resources, £219,990;
- Governor’s projects, £197,461;
- community services, £196,861;
- water and sanitation, £193,861;
- airstrip (consultancies), £142,609;
- and miscellaneous, £475,667.
The release revealed that included in the sum are expenditures on projects that were approved before July 1995 and completed before October 1997. Included in this were assets such as the Glendon Hospital that was eventually destroyed. This expenditure is covered under the item ‘pre-crisis activities’.
It is to be noted that every penny spent any where (anyhow) relative to Montserrat is included in the £59 million. There is an item called ‘Support from UK Armed Forces” for a total £990,459 and it should be noted also that under Evacuee Programmes the total amounts to £4,058,809 which includes the entire evacuation scheme, which we have described at the time as the best run-business in Montserrat. It is only £1.5 million less than what has been spent on housing.
Included also in this sum of £59 million is an amount of just under £19 million which is money not actually spent but relates to expenditure for physical development assets which have a life in excess of 10 years.
Volcano monitoring, helicopter and ferry services total together £5,889718 with the ferry cost covering 19.26% of the total and the helicopter 42.13 per cent.
The grand total on the items under Emergency, amounts to £15.7 million, and of that there is an item believed to cover the rental of houses for British officials on island, and totals £796,852 in 1997/98 as against the rental of government offices which totals £346,467 for the same period.
