Government is donating US$150,000 via the Red Cross to Nepal where over 5,000 people have been killed and 11,000 injured in the recent earthquake, Communication Minister Vasant Bharath has said.
At yesterday’s post-cabinet media conference, he added that Nepal’s prime minister had estimated the death toll from Nepal’s deadliest earthquake could reach 10,000. Nepal has estimated its long-term rebuilding cost at US$5billion. The country has received post-earthquake aid from many countries including the UK, the US, India, China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, European states and Middle Eastern territories.
Bharath said he had been asked by the media recently if T&T would be contributing to the assistance given and he subsequently took the issue to Cabinet which approved the donation to show T&T’s solidarity with Nepal. The Foreign Affairs Ministry will disburse the funds to the Red Cross.
Bharath said the Office of Disaster Preparedness had shared with the National Security Council a month ago its plans for measures to mitigate earthquake damage. He said there were many buildings in T&T lacking planning permission and which were unsafe, including some in mountainside communities where lands were cleared for building.
He said Government had launched an aggressive drive to give titles to people for them to obtain loans to build better homes. Bharath disagreed with a column yesterday by Guardian Media’s chief editor, business, Anthony Wilson, in which Wilson challenged Bharath’s recent statements that there was somewhere in the region of US$5 billion held in deposits in T&T.
Bharath said Wilson contended there was US$3.65 billion and that he (Bharath) should have apologised for the figure he gave. Bharath clarified his statement, saying, “I just want to inform you, the correct amount is US$5 billion.
There is US$3.65 billion in the commercial banks but there’s a further US$1.35 billion being held through deposits in the UTC, Roytrin and other mutual funds which brings it up to US$5 billion. So Mr Wilson please check your facts before you make irresponsible statements.”
Contacted for comment, Wilson said, “I really do not want to get into any extended argument with Mr Bharath, but as a former banker, he really ought to know that people place money in a commercial bank deposit account as opposed to an investment in a mutual fund for different reasons.
“He is right that if the monies held in locally domiciled mutual funds are added to the foreign currency accounts at commercial banks, the total will approach US$5 billion. But he is wrong to suggest that there has been a dramatic or unusual increase in the amount of money in the country’s foreign currency deposit and mutual fund accounts.
“The real danger, of course, is that his statements will simply encourage more people to convert their TT-dollar savings into US-dollar deposits or mutual funds. “Mr Bharath ought to be more careful in his communication on such a sensitive issue.”