Press release 25/2005
(28 January 2005)

It is with pleasure that I welcome you to this Special Emergency Meeting and thank, in particular, the representatives from CARICOM institutions that have traveled at short notice to be with us today. While welcoming you, I regret, however, the reasons, which give rise to this Meeting. I am also most grateful to the representatives of Civil Defence Commission (CDC), the Joint Operations Centre (JOC), the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) as well as PAHO, for their demonstrated commitment and for joining us here at the CARICOM Secretariat, to discuss the critical issues related to the Region's response to the situation in Guyana, the location of our Headquarters.

I do not have to restate in any detail the reasons for this gathering or the gravity of the situation facing the Government, the Guyanese people and those others of us who live here, as we struggle to deal with relief to so many who have suffered from the effects of the floods. Nor do I need to spell out the implications for the health and well-being of all residents in Guyana, and I repeat all residents in Guyana, if urgent and effective steps are not taken to prevent the spread of diseases and to put in place adequate facilities to respond to critical economic, social and health needs.

At the onset of the disaster, I myself, was away from Guyana, returning from Mauritius, having attended the United Nations Meeting to review the Barbados Programme of Action adopted in 1994, to deal with the problems of Small Island Developing States, as well as low-lying coastal States like Guyana.

At that Meeting, attended by the UN Secretary-General among others, we spent much time on the recent disasters of South East Asia and Grenada etc. Little did I know that I would be returning home to meet another disaster, this time in Guyana. And let it be known, the staff of the Secretariat has not been spared; that is the nature of disasters, they do not discriminate.

As soon as I was able to get to Guyana, I visited the affected areas in and around Georgetown and on the East Coast, and even though it was more than a week after the onslaught of the floods, the sites of devastation, which I saw from village to village, left a chilling effect within my very bones.

I grieve with the brave people of Guyana who have been suffering the hardships and the perils of this unprecedented disaster in their country's history. The experience of the staff of the Secretariat mirror the effects on the society, as many of the persons sitting around this table today and sitting at the back, and the many more who are at their desks return home these days, not in motor cars, but in boats to flooded yards and homes.

I have had the opportunity to speak with H.E. the President of Guyana and other Guyana Government officials. I have also spoken with the Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Government, President Runaldo Venetiaan, of Suriname, the Honourable Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Patrick Manning and representatives of other CARICOM Governments who have all voiced their concern and indicated their countries' willingness to contribute toward the restoration efforts in Guyana. I have also taken the initiative to write to every CARICOM Head of Government to convey to them the gravity of the situation as I saw it. I know that they would expect important results from this and similar meetings, and with recommendations as to what the region can meaningfully do to assist this Member State.

At the level of the Secretariat itself, a large number of our staff have been flooded out and in all other ways affected. Thanks however, to the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and to BWIA for free transportation, we have been able to obtain a significant amount of food and other supplies, some of which we have made available to the staff most affected, but most of which we will be making available today, to the appropriate national institution for distribution to the Guyanese people. We are also establishing a Fund into which members of staff are invited to contribute to the best of their ability, having already been impacted by the floods, the resources to be used to help the most needy causes. Notwithstanding the above, we continue to work to the best of our ability, after a week's closure, with a skeleton staff, as we prepare for the upcoming Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government and the Inauguration of our Headquarters building here in Guyana in three week's time.

Against this background, the main aim of this meeting in our view is to focus on the regional response to the health situation and, therefore, to come up with a plan of action that could assist the Government of Guyana to avert what, without appropriate action, can indeed develop into a health crisis in this country.

It is for this reason that we have requested you the leaders of the CARICOM Regional health institutions - CAREC, CEHI and CFNI to join the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), PAHO, UNDAC, the Ministry of Health of Guyana and the local response agencies, CDC and JOC, in brainstorming to achieve a workable plan. In so doing we are cognizant of the efforts already being spearheaded by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with PAHO during this relief phase.

Today, we need to come up with at least a framework of a strategy that is capable of taking those efforts further, in adequately responding to the health situation and of pre-empting any health disasters. To do so, we need first of all to have a good grasp of the magnitude of the task, from the vantage point of an up-to-date assessment of the situation, one that is no doubt very dynamic.

In that respect, we have requested that the UNDAC representative inform us of the overall situation. We will also receive a report from a meeting that was held by the Honourable Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy this morning, on the technical aspects of the response initiative to health issues. Hopefully, this would assist us to frame an adequate, accelerated health response that is complementary to and supportive of the Government's ongoing efforts and the priorities that it has established.

We will also call on you the leaders of the regional health institutions to identify your organisation's areas of competence and the scope of their activities and possible involvement in the response. In this regard, we anticipate that there will be a full discussion on the resource capabilities and the capacity of the institutions to deliver on commitments, in a timely manner, as the relief phase merges into rehabilitation and restoration.

We have been advised that the threats of water borne diseases such as dysentery and cholera and others including malaria and filaria are very real. The requirements of a large supply of sanitary conveniences to pre-empt contamination of water supply are also equally pressing. For all these reasons, we need solutions - NOW.

We therefore anticipate that the proposed strategies emerging from our discussions would focus on an immediate or rapid response, but would also chart medium and long-term measures. Whatever the time line, positive results hinge on resource capabilities and timeliness.

I look forward to a productive meeting and once again thank you all for being here and making this meeting a reality.