by Linda Straker
- Debt suspension clause triggered following Hurricane Ivan in 2004
- Debt suspension clause last triggered during Covid-19 pandemic in 2020
- Cabinet to establish task forces to assess damages and impact from Beryl
Grenada has written to lending agencies and multilateral partners requesting that the debt payment suspension clause in several loan agreements be triggered because of the country’s devastation following Hurricane Beryl’s passage.
“The Minister for Finance has already written to some of our multilateral partners to indicate to them that this catastrophic event has happened and to trigger our debt suspension clause in some of these agreements,” Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell announced during a news conference late Wednesday, 2 July 2024.
Following Hurricane Ivan’s passage in 2004, Grenada’s then Prime Minister, Dr Keith Mitchell, advocated and successfully campaigned for a debt suspension clause to be included in all new loan agreements. That clause should be triggered whenever the country experiences hazards from natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, or a health pandemic.
The last time Grenada requested a triggering of that clause was in 2020, when Covid-19 was declared a pandemic.
Prime Minister Mitchell said that the passage of Beryl is having both fiscal and social impacts on the economy, and right now, the country will need significant resources. “The clean-up alone will run into the tens of millions of dollars,” he said while announcing there will be a national clean-up on the weekend. It is going to be a mammoth task to rebuild Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique.”
During an emergency meeting, the Cabinet agreed to establish several task forces to assess the damages and the impact the category 4 hurricane had and is having on the country. “We have agreed to create a task force to treat this significant catastrophic event will have on the 2024 budget, the economy and the current fiscal situation,” said the Prime Minister.
“We are going to create a task force to deal with coordinating relief efforts in conjunction with NaDMA as it relates to our foreign partners,” said Prime Minister Mitchell, who also carries the responsibility of Minister for National Disaster and chair of the National Emergency Advisory Council (NEAC). “The Cabinet also agreed to establish a task force to do a detailed assessment of the loss and damage to know how much the island has suffered in the area of agriculture, fishing, housing, public buildings, private buildings, public infrastructure and the environment as a result of Hurricane Beryl.”
“I want to stress that the environment has taken a severe battering as a result of this hurricane, not just the built infrastructure. We need to make sure that we record accurately the loss, the damage and that we are able to quantify this because it has significant implications for the economy of Grenada, for the government’s fiscal situation and for some of our contractual obligations, liabilities as well as benefits,” he said.
