Guyana to send over $40m to the Bahamas; 23 more Guyanese to return home

Guyana will be sending over $40 million to the Bahamas to help the island recover from the devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian- the most powerful recorded tropical storm to strike the Bahamas.

This was announced by Minister of State Dawn Hastings-Williams following a telethon on State-TV NCN.

The first Guyanese family, unable to cope with the devastation, has returned home.

After living in the Bahamas for seven years, Orin Grimmond, his wife and three children returned to Guyana after surviving Hurricane Dorian.

The Grimmond family was greeted at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport by Minister of State Dawn Hastings- Williams, Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix, Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Karen Cummings and Director-General of the Civil Defence Commission (CDC), Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig.

The family will be staying at the Marriott Hotel for five days and they will then be transported to Lethem by Trans Guyana Airways free of cost.

Meanwhile, the Director General of the CDC told the media Monday that a number of other persons have indicated that they want to return to Guyana and they are working to have all arrangement in place for their safe return.

“There is a total of 28 persons who have indicated their interest to return and this is the first five out of the 28 and we are now looking at working out arrangement for the remainder of persons to travel, once we have the flight arrangements and all the travel documents in place they will be accommodated to return to Guyana,” he stated.

The Director General noted that a number of concerns were raised and documented by the Guyanese affected by the hurricane in the Bahamas.

Some of the concerns were shared with the Ministries of Citizenship and Foreign Affairs as persons would have lost their travel documents and birth certificates.

The Department of Citizenship has committed to replacing these documents.

“…we keep in direct contact with almost 100 persons on a daily basis to identify their needs and to identify if people want to return and through that mechanism we were able to identify the five persons that came here,” the Director General said.

Minister Hastings-Williams said the Government has been working together with the private sector to support Guyanese affected by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas.

“This encourages us as a government to see that we can partner with the private sector, business persons, non-governmental organisations.

“…I am very happy for their response; they have done so in the past and they continue to do it,” the Minister said.