BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – A top official of the British Department for International Development (DFID) said Friday the United Kingdom government remains committed to assisting volcano-ravaged Montserrat, even as talks continue with local authorities on ways of increasing self-sufficiency.
“One cannot ignore the volcano and the size of the dome is the largest it has ever been,” said Sue Wardell, the department’s lead spokeswoman for the Caribbean, adding that she had recently approved an additional 100 000 pounds sterling (US$155,702) to enable a special plane “to go in and do some mapping because the topography has changed so much”.
The DFID Director for the Middle East, Caribbean and Asia told reporters that she was very encouraged by the response of the Montserrat officials to a challenge she had issued a year ago for them to come up with “a road map to deliver more efficiencies in their own spending and to try and release resources from the current expenditure for capital investment.
“It was a very positive visit and I was incredibly encouraged by what I saw in Little Bay (located in the northern safe zone of the island) where a year on, there is a real evidence of an infrastructure growing there and I think potentially it could be one of the most charming towns in the Caribbean,” she said, while stressing the importance of development of a new town for Montserrat, whose old capital, Plymouth, was wiped out and had to be abandoned when the volcano roared back to life in 1995.
With just about one third of the 40 square mile island currently occupied by about 5,000 residents, Wardell said discussions were held with local authorities about contingency planning and they also explored the possibility of a major explosion coming down the north face rather than the south face of the active volcano.
However, she said the primary focus of her talks this week in Montserrat was on the way forward for the British Overseas Territory (BOT) and how the UK government could support the island’s plans for self sufficiency.
However, the British official did not go in to details on the current proposals.
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