GOVERNMENT IS GOING to Parliament today with an urgent supplementary resolution for an undisclosed sum to meet part of the estimated $37 million price tag to fix the damage caused by Tropical?Storm Tomas last?October 30.
Prime Minister Freundel Stuart has said it was an unplanned expense which Government would have to meet to repair 1 000 houses with confirmed damages, and possibly another 400 or 500, mainly chattel houses.
He told the media that when the House of Assembly meets a today at 10 a.m., Government would seek an amendment to the Catastrophe Fund legislation to access monies which now total about $23 million.
Government will also have access to another $17 million from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), based on preliminary calculations of damages to Barbados,?St Lucia and St Vincent and The Grenadines, while the final loss and payout calculation was scheduled to be done last Saturday with data from the Miami-based National?Hurricane Centre.
High on the Order Paper for today’s sitting is a resolution for a Government guarantee of a $58.1 million loan from the Bank of Nova Scotia to the Barbados Conference Services Limited (BCSL).
The money is to be used to finance a construction project for the provision of a commercial office building, a multi-storey car park and upgraded and renovated kitchen facilities at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Two Mile Hill,
St Michael, in addition to the payment of value added tax (VAT) – $5 million – associated with the project.
The four-storey office building will have 81 000 square feet of rentable space.
There is also a resolution for a Government guarantee of a loan of $40 million from FirstCaribbean?International Bank (Barbados) Limited by the National Housing Corporation (NHC) to finance the construction of residential houses for sale.
New on the Order Paper is the Medical Profession Bill, designed to repeal the Medical Registration?Act.
Its main provisions are the establishment of the Barbados Medical Council; the registration of medical practitioners; regulation of the conduct and discipline of medical practitioners; prescription of qualifications, approval of standards and requirement for continual education and training; and regulation of advertising by medical practitioners. (AB)