It is now one year since Melissa entered Jamaica without a passport and left a lot of devastation and misery in its wake. Many who were in the direct path of the hurricane are still shell-shocked in terms of how it upended their lives and how different things have been since its passage. One year later, the mental, physical, and emotional pain is still felt and many are still in a daze as to what the future portends. They have lost everything and there seems not to be any benefactor to give them solace.

Naturally, in emergencies like these people look and turn to the Government for help. For good or ill, they register their frustration against the Government for what they are experiencing. In situations like that, no Government can do enough to assuage their pain and calm their anxiety. Their anxieties become more pronounced when the Government appears to be dithering as to the appropriate response to be made to their suffering.

Thus, criticism of government inaction becomes palpable.

In this context, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness has been very annoyed at what appears to him to be the baseless criticisms of his Government’s response to the recovery process. One can appreciate his annoyance and his stated need to respond to his critics. Far be it for me to give any prime minister advice, but Dr Holness would be well advised that it is not every criticism that merits his attention. This is especially so when he responds with annoyance. This will only embolden the critics who will rejoice that they have been successful in getting under his skin.

The prime minister is a seasoned politician in his third term in office. He should know by now that wherever he goes and whatever he says, there are always those who will lament everything — real or imagined. They often behave as if they are co-authors of the book of Lamentations and are rarely satisfied if things do not go their way. To answer them is to throw gasoline on the fire.

At the end of the day, what are important to well-thinking people are results. Those who are directly in charge of the gargantuan recovery effort must keep their focus. If the buzz of every criticism is heard or met with peeve, that is a clear indication that one is not doing one’s job effectively. They must keep their shoulders to the wheel and concentrate on getting good results for, at the end of the day, this is what really matters.

Which brings me to my own concerns and even criticism of where we are one year after Melissa. However the prime minister or anyone may feel, there are at least two important facts that must be recognised and seriously factored in when we consider the recovery process.

First, the Government and first responders dropped the ball immediately after the storm hit. I put the emphasis on “immediately” meaning what is done the day after the storm has passed. In an emergency of the kind caused by a Category 5 storm, what happens in the first three days in saving lives and getting people the crucial help they need to survive — food, shelter, water, and basic medicine — is of the utmost importance.

For one whole week, in terms of the massive needs, it can safely be said that there was an absence of presence on the part of the Government in attending to the anguish of people who felt that they were literally on death’s doorstep. Communities were cut off, homes were destroyed, and lives lost, yet the following day one did not see a convoy of trucks, especially under the aegis of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), wending their way with food (tin foods and other perishables), water, and tents with blankets to the affected areas, especially where the storm landed. And do not tell me that the roads were impassable. I was in Mandeville and workers from the municipal authority could be seen clearing the debris along the way. I was able to make the journey from there to Treasure Beach and back without a hitch. I was driving a Toyota Yaris, so just imagine how easier lorries could have navigated the terrain.

No central command post was set up to serve as a nerve centre of response. And do not say that this is “20-20 vision” after the event; for we had almost a week to see the trajectory of the storm and to move with alacrity in anticipating damage. It would have been good if the JDF had set up a command centre in Mandeville in anticipation of the storm. It is clear that they were not robustly employed, and I believe that one of the things that the storm has taught us is that there needs to be a re-evaluation of the JDF’s response to national disasters of this magnitude.

Second, the roll-out of the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) has been spasmodic at best. The criticisms concerning office space to house the authority should have been anticipated and still has not assuaged the thinking of critics that it should have been located so far from the “scene of real action”. It is going to take some time before NaRRA can grab the attention of people in a positive way as long as pain and anguish from the hurricane persist in the devastated areas. It is almost an insult, and certainly incongruous, to locate the nerve centre of operation in an environment so far removed from where it should matter most.

I understand the argument of being in resilient buildings, but I am sure that such accommodation could have been found in Mandeville, which, being in the centre of the island, would have been a better location. I am not now even commenting on the cost of the Digicel building space; my concern is proximity to where the real action is, even though the offices may not be as well-laid-out as those on the Kingston waterfront. This does not give any impression of the “hands on the ground” or the “roll up your sleeve” assurance that people are looking for. Mandeville would have worked well as a central command centre in smaller office spaces with satellite offices nearer the affected areas in St Elizabeth.

If what one is concerned about is mere paper pushing in rarefied spaces on a waterfront, then the Digicel building fits the bill quite well. Again, I am not criticising cost, but proximity to where it matters most. As I have advised in this space before, NaRRA, and by extension the country, should not seek to bite off more than it can chew. It should tackle nimble, doable projects that can be done in short time frames before tackling big and elaborate ones that will inevitably get bogged down in bureaucratic quagmires despite the best intentions of the legislation that brought NaRRA into being.

Civil servants are themselves victims of the bureaucratic morass which hampers productivity in the country. Sometimes, Mr Prime Minister, civil servants might appear to be saboteurs, but often they themselves are warring against the trammels of the system in which they too are trapped.

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest, social commentator and author of the books Finding Peace in the Midst of Life’s Storms; The Self-esteem Guide to a Better Life and Beyond Petulance: Republican Politics and the Future of America. Check out his Substack-the healing self, on substack.com. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or stead6655@aol.com.