Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but why is it so difficult to get disaster aid money from the European Commission?
We welcome the first payment of $1.18 million from the EC to help us continue to recover from Hurricane Ivan.
That is far less than the $8.8 million promised to us almost five years ago – $7.62 million to be exact.
Payment delays have been blamed on our inability to meet certain banking guarantees.
Maybe we could accept that argument if we were a third-world undeveloped country.
But we’re not.
We are the Cayman Islands. We have the most stringent banking rules and regulations of anywhere in the world.
We don’t swallow the argument that we don’t meet certain EC banking guarantees.
To meet those requirements, though, the EC is going to dribble the rest of the money to us in smaller increments until the entire $8.8 is paid off.
The process is supposed to take up to 18 months, if not longer.
Thank goodness for a weak US dollar. It means that the money coming to us from the EC is worth more than it would have been had the dollar remained strong.
Another silver lining to this dark cloud is that because the EC was so slow in meeting its obligation to the Cayman Islands, the Government here stepped in to fund a lot of the reconstruction and repair of homes damaged or destroyed in the 2004 hurricane.
This has resulted in the EC allowing the ambit of the recovery project it is funding to widen.
That means some of the houses already receiving repairs from the National Recovery Fund will now be outfitted with hurricane shutters.
It is right that the NRF if going a step farther to protect this homes from future storms.
We hope that these dealings with the EC have taught us some valuable lessons about bureaucracy and butting heads.
Those with homes damaged or destroyed in the 2004 storm shouldn’t have had to wait so long to have their domiciles repaired or rebuilt.
We just hope this process is over before another major storm strikes the Cayman Islands.
We hope that these dealings with the EC have taught us some valuable lessons about bureaucracy and butting heads.
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