Jamaica’s government announced that a $150 million World Bank loan, fast-tracked after superstorm Melissa battered the country last October, has significantly helped restore power to some affected areas.
Minister of Energy Daryl Vaz told parliament this week that the money enabled the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) to speed up power restoration in several devastated northern and western communities, including Westmoreland, St Elizabeth, and St James.
He said, “Within three weeks of receiving this support, we restored electricity to over 50 per cent of the approximately 108,000 customers who remained without service, including multiple critical facilities, such as water pumps and telecommunication sites, in line with the restoration strategy.” So far, the government has brought 491,000 of the 542,000 customers who had been living in darkness or surviving on alternative power systems back on the grid after nearly three months. “This means that 92 per cent of customers now have electricity. Approximately 51,000 of close to 700,000 customers are without power,” Vaz said.
The superstorm made landfall in late October and devastated homes, schools, courthouses, police stations, and other key state infrastructure. Flood waters also sparked an outbreak of the deadly leptospirosis, but health authorities brought it under control. For Jamaicans, Hurricane Melissa struck just 15 months after Hurricane Beryl, another category five storm, also caused severe damage to Grenada’s sister islands of Petite Martinique and Carriacou, neighboring St. Vincent, and Jamaica. Melissa spared Kingston, the capital, and the nearby areas.
Fellow Caribbean Community nations, including Guyana and Barbados, sent local power company linesmen to Jamaica, and Barbados also donated a field hospital to support medical outreaches to affected areas.
In these circumstances, he said the island has recovered fairly well. “Jamaica’s restoration response has outperformed regional peers and is close to best-in-class, with a level of recovery that is commendable and reflects disciplined execution, collaboration, and professional leadership.”
Late last year, a consortium of multilateral lending agencies, including the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group, joined together to raise at least $3.6 billion in emergency funds to help Jamaica after the mega storm.
