The Government on Thursday launched its multi-billion-dollar Hurricane Melissa Shelter Recovery Programme (SRP) promising accountability through traceability and warning that, based on lessons learnt from Hurricane Beryl in 2024, it will be able to spot individuals who try to dupe the system to collect multiple benefits.

The SRP is a multifaceted, coordinated national response covering reconstruction, rehabilitation, and relocation and marks the Government’s transition from relief to recovery after Hurricane Melissa which hit Jamaica on October 28 last year. Led by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, SRP is designed to support families, restore homes, and strengthen communities.

“In terms of the delivery we will be utilising a suite of payment modalities to advance the delivery of disbursements that will allow us to accommodate the many different circumstances that persons are existing in,” Labour and Social Security Minister Pearnel Charles Jr said, noting that the funds will be leveraging digital delivery which will allow the Government to ringfence and have better management of where vouchers are used to ensure accountability.

“With the SRP, what we have done is to develop some principles and protocols that will guide how we execute and to make sure that everything we do is clear and accountable. There will be one benefit per household, and this is from the lessons learnt in Beryl, where we had some persons who might have been partners for life and utilised the functionality of their different last names in a very good way. We’ve learnt a lot of lessons in terms of our social workers going out and doing certain investigations,” Charles Jr added pointedly while providing an overview of the programme during the launch at Jamaica House in St Andrew.

He said steps have been put in place to eliminate duplication using the Taxpayer Registration Number (TRN) system, and other means.

In the meantime, he warned Jamaicans to be on the alert for unscrupulous individuals who might attempt to capitalise on their suffering.

“There is no fee associated with the process of application for the SRP. Artificial intelligence is being utilised by all, and so already we have had to cauterise and eliminate from the public domain persons who have sought to give the impression that they are associated with the ministry or the Government of Jamaica, and asking people for information. I want to reiterate that there is no fee and that you should utilise authentic Government channels of information because we have found that they target the same persons we are targeting: the vulnerable. Our social workers are alert to make sure they can identify the persons trying to destroy our prosperity,” he added.

Charles Jr said, to date, more than 70,000 household assessments have been completed covering more than 200,000 people, which will determine the grant payments for households that experienced minor damage, major damage, or severe damage. So far, he said, 18 per cent of homes assessed have seen severe damage; 40 per cent, major damage; and 42 per cent, minor damage. The major component of the programme is the Restoration of Owner-Occupant Family Shelter (ROOFS) segment which allows the ministry to satisfy the passage of benefits to individuals assessed for damage.

The grants tiered at $75,000, $200,000, and $500,000 will be allocated based on the category of damage and are sourced from“an initial $10-billion allocation by the Government”, and should begin flowing by the end of this month.

“To be eligible for the programme, once you are on the beneficiary list, meaning once you have been impacted by the hurricane, you have done the assessment and you have been verified, you are automatically qualified,” the labour minister explained.

“If we go to your street and we don’t see you, we cannot complete the assessment, so we have a self-reporting tool that you can also access, not for you to qualify, but for you to be assessed and then verified and you would qualify,” he said further.

“So, if you don’t have any damage, you are not going to be a part of ROOFS, if you have minor, major, severe damage you are part of ROOFS…” Charles Jr explained.

The programme also carries a Government-led repair component which is being driven by the Jamaica Defence Force with a focus on roof repairs, a partner-led repair aspect led by the humanitarian assistance community, and a National Housing Trust-led component which features grants, loans, insurance and modular solutions deployed through the State’s Social Housing Programme. Completing the slew of functions under the programme is an extension of the relocation and regularisation programme of the Government to ensure that individuals in vulnerable spaces are rehoused in safer areas.

“If you are in one category, you won’t be in another. For the relocation and regularisation, the conversation didn’t start with Hurricane Melissa and it won’t stop; the intention is to focus on the homes impacted by Melissa, but the programme will bring to attention all spaces that are exposed and vulnerable in the country,” Charles Jr stated.

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness, delivering the keynote address, said the Government will be stepping up its efforts to counter misinformation in the information economy and protect the SRP from criminal infiltration.

“In a programme like this where I have seen an artificially generated image of the minister of labour and of other influential persons, including myself, we have to be absolutely careful that there is no hijacking of a programme like this that could have persons being caught paying for receiving the grant, for example, because there are such scams out there where an unsuspecting person may be caught up in a scheme to say ‘let me help you to get the $500,000 grant’,” Holness said.

“There is no intermediary. I want to make that point clear. The Ministry of Labour and Social Security is not hiring anyone, any agent, any intermediary to help you to get the grant, so if anyone comes to you or you may see something on social media suggesting this, please dismiss it,” he advised.

Holness also urged householders to be conscientious.

“If you are an owner of several houses you can only get one benefit, this is not for the greedy, this is for the needy… which is why we do an assessment to take your TRN, make sure that you are clearly identified so that you can’t get a benefit here and then come over and get another benefit there because… you would be depriving someone who really needs the benefit when you would have gotten two, so we are very careful in putting in place a system of accountability,” the prime minister stressed.

President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Kate Forbes also addressed the event. Noting that “shelter is central to recovery”, she said this remained one of the priority areas of both the Jamaica Red Cross and the IFRC.

She said the entity is “committed to community-based approaches that reduce future costs and risk, strengthen preparedness, and place people at the centre of recovery”.

President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Kate Forbes addressing Thursdy’a launch of the Government’s multi-billion-dollar Hurricane Melissa Shelter Recovery Programme at Jamaica House. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)