The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has been asked to escort fuel tankers into the hardest-hit parishes to ensure communities can start to recover from the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa.

Energy Minister Daryl Vaz told a media briefing that the state-owned oil refinery, Petrojam, began the loading of tankers for islandwide delivery at 6:00 Friday morning “ensuring that fuel distribution continues uninterrupted”.

Vaz was scheduled to meet with marketing companies and all fuel suppliers at 11:30 Friday morning to indicate to them and to coordinate with them through the National Works Agency and …the police, “to get the tankers into the western part of the island to fuel the gas stations which are in some cases low and out of fuel”.

“That will also go for alternative sources of fuel and LPG and whatever is required to keep the operations and the citizenry of these areas going.

“So I’m hoping that based on the roads being cleared or somewhat cleared, we’ll be able to get fuel in, and of course, the police will be asked to escort, to get them in, in a timely manner as a matter of urgency,” he added.