The long-awaited presentation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) in Parliament took place in a meeting of the Central Committee of Parliament on Thursday (see related story). It regards a blueprint for post-Hurricane Irma rebuilding projects to be financed with the US $580 million Trust Fund provided by the Netherlands and managed by the World Bank.
Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin explained that there is still a $1 billion gap to execute all the proposals in the policy document, for which additional funding is to be found. This is based on the World Bank’s estimate of $2.7 billion in total damage and losses plus the NRRP’s projection that $2.3 billion is needed over the next seven years.
While that amount may indeed be correct on paper, people ought to be realistic. Roughly half a billion dollars plus the government’s expected insurance pay-outs of $320 to $340 million is an awful lot of money for a small country with which much can be achieved.
The focus should therefore not be on what is still missing, but rather on what is available. As the prime minister herself indicated, priorities will have to be set.
Certainly, borrowing more than already required for liquidity support and to cover the budget deficit does not appear a wise move to contemplate at this time, unless it’s an absolute necessity. Great care must be taken not to mortgage the future of the next generation by taking out too big and many loans, because no matter how favourable their conditions, they must one day be repaid.
The prudent course of action for now is clearly to make do as best possible with what one has. In other words; see the glass as half full instead of half empty.
