OPPOSITION Senator Kisha Anderson has urged the Government to consider that the international finance community may not always be in a position to come to Jamaica’s aid in the way it did following the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa which left an estimated US$8.8 billion in physical damage.

Anderson gave the caution in the Senate last Friday during the debate on amendments to the Financial Administration and Audit (FAA) Act.

“I take it not for granted that we will [always] enjoy the same level of support from international organisations.

“As we did say, the region is being faced with more and more disasters, and we are not going to be the only small island that has to rely on the generosity of other well-thinking world citizens,” said Anderson.

The amendments to the FAA Act, which were approved by the Upper House, remove the cap on the maximum amount that may be held in the National Natural Disaster Reserve Fund (NNDRF).

It also eliminates the annual mandatory transfers from the Consolidated Fund to the NNDRF, once the balance is at or above $10 billion.

Additionally, the section which makes provision for the transfer of $200 million from the Consolidated Fund to the NNDRF, which provision began in the 2023/2024 financial year, has been removed.

Like their counterparts in House of Representatives when the amendments were debated, Opposition members in the Upper House questioned the rationale behind stopping the $200-million annual payments into the NNDRF from the Consolidated Fund.

They argued that what was available for payout from the NNDRF in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa was a drop in the bucket compared to the amount need for the reconstruction.

In response, Leader of Government Business in the Senate Kamina Johnson Smith argued that the Administration had built a multi-layered disaster risk financing framework which included a catastrophe bond, making Jamaica the first small State to sponsor its own catastrophe bond, “one to which Melissa has given great global visibility”.

But making her contribution to the debate, Anderson said the maturity of us as a people is evident in the layered approach to disaster risk management that has been employed, “and I commend successive administrations that have sought to ensure that we have strengthened our ability to respond to natural disasters.

“It is for this reason why I am wondering why we would want to take a step back now.”

The Opposition senator also said focus should be placed on governance and accountability issues as she declared that, “I do believe that accountability can be the remedy sometimes that will help to heal the wounds of mistakes of poor governance.”

In this regard, she said consideration should be given to the oversight aspects of the FAA Act.

Following Hurricane Melissa, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness described as historic the amount of money being made available to Jamaica by several multilateral institutions to drive the country’s recovery and rebuilding efforts.

Holness told Parliament in early December that international financial institutions (IFIs) – the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, Inter-American Development Bank, Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Caribbean Development Bank — had jointly announced a three-year, coordinated, financing package of up to US$6.7 billion to support Jamaica’s recovery, reconstruction, and long-term resilience.

“This is the single largest and most comprehensive development financing package ever assembled for Jamaica,” Holness said.