Dominica to focus on rebuilding projects
ROSEAU, Dominica (CMC) — The Roosevelt Skerrit Administration will be focusing on rebuilding projects across the island within five years.
This was disclosed by Financial Secretary Rosamund Edwards in her address at the National Rebuilding and Economic Partnership Consultation on Monday.
She said shortly after the passage of Hurricane Maria, the Government engaged itself along with other development partners in the conduct of a Post Disaster needs assessment.
The results estimated the damage to be US$931 million, loss was estimated at US$380 million, and the needs were estimated at US$1.4 million.
She said the Government will seek to undertake work in the first year valued at just under US$300 million, years one to three work valued at just over US$700 million, and years three to five work valued at US$221 million.
Edwards said for this to be accomplished, each sector, inclusive of every person in these sectors, is required to get on board.
Meanwhile, it was also disclosed that the country’s generation capacity is now at approximately 70 per cent.
General manager for Dominica Electricity Services Limited’s (DOMLEC) Dave Stamp said approximately 89 per cent of the island’s sole power company’s generation system and 98 per cent of the transmission distribution and customer delivery system were severely affected as a result of the passage of Hurricane Maria.
Stamp was presenting on behalf of DOMLEC at the consultation.
Stamp said since then a lot of work has been done.
“Currently on the generation side, we have 14 of 19 units available for dispatch and generation; that’s about 74 per cent of our generation systems have been restored”, representing about 70 per cent of generation capacity. He said this is because DOMLEC’s capacity for generation is 19 megawatts, while the install capacity is just under 27 megawatts.