Prime Minister Skerrit to lead a regional fact finding team to hurricane-ravaged Haiti & the Bahamas

​Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit will fly out of Dominica today at the helm of a regional fact-finding mission bound for Haiti and The Bahamas; the two Caribbean countries hardest hit by Hurricane Matthew last week. In his capacity as current CARICOM Chairman, Skerrit is leading the region's first response effort to assess the level of damage and destruction wreaked on the sister member states of the regional integration and economic movement.
He will be accompanied by Government's Advisor on Disaster Management, Cecil Shillingford, and will be joined, en route to The Bahamas by CARICOM Secretary General, Irwin Laroque, Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Ronald Jackson and other technical personnel.
The Dominica Leader was the first to officially acknowledge the devastation and announced last Friday (October 7, 2016), in an address to the nation, the establishment of a National Hurricane Matthew Disaster Relief Effort, to be spearheaded in Dominica by the private sector. Since that address by the Prime Minister, the death toll in Haiti alone, has risen to almost 1 000, and it is feared that number will rise, as several areas are still not accessible to rescue teams.
Bahamas on the other hand, suffered considerable damage to its road and housing infrastructure. The Dominican Leader also said in his address, that he would be paying close attention to the impact of Hurricane Matthew on the United States of America.
Businesses and individuals in Dominica who want to contribute to the national appeal effort have been advised to liaise with the Office of Disaster Management, the Red Cross or other such agencies, and to make their initial pledge, followed by actual donations during the course of this week.
Skerrit is expected to update the nation and the wider region on the observations and interactions of the CARRCOM with their Haitian and Bahamian counterparts, on his return from the disaster stricken nations.