Dear Editor,
Your newspaper published on Thursday March 15, 2007 a report captioned “Aid for Great Flood was almost $204m – Singh.” The article reports on a statement made by the Honourable Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh to Parliament in response to a question raised by MP Volda Lawrence on the assistance received by Guyana during the major floods of 2005.
The Delegation of the European Commission would like to complement the information provided by the reply. The total amount of the emergency assistance for the floods which the European Commission delivered to Guyana amounted to ?2.782.500 which corresponds to roughly 695 million Guyana dollars. Since this assistance was not delivered through government agencies, but through OXFAM, IFRC and PAHO, the Ministry of Finance might not have had records of the assistance received.
The First Aid assistance worth of ?86.000 arrived at Timehri on Thursday of the week in January when the flooding started.
Yours faithfully,
Helen Jenkinson
Charge
