Storr: Dorian Pledge Conference Was PR Stunt

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – A public relations exercise designed to ‘bamboozle’ Bahamians is how Disaster Reconstruction Authority Executive Chairman Alex Storr is describing the hurricane Dorian pledge conference. Smith lashing out over millions of dollars spent on debris clean-up, while also addressing an ongoing audit of the DRA.

Jasmin Brown reports.

The DRA Executive Chairman did not hold back as he continued to rail against the Minnis administration’s handling of post-Dorian recovery.

This time he slammed a January 2020 pledge conference that was sponsored by the United Nations development programme.

In January 2020, the Minnis administration said it received $1.5 billion in pledges for hurricane Dorian relief during a special pledging conference.

The pledges included technical assistance, intellectual assistance, concessionary loans, equity, grants and guarantee financing.

As it relates to clean-up efforts, two years after the monster storm ravaged parts of Grand Bahama and Abaco, Storr isn’t happy about that either.

He detailed millions of spending with what he called minimal results at some dump sites.

Storr says the Davis administration is investigating how to end some of the underperforming contracts.

The DRA official also addressed the authority not being in compliance with the law.

Although a DRA progress report dated February 2021 was tabled in parliament last year, the authority remains in violation of the Disaster Reconstruction Authority Act 2019 which mandates the DRA submit a copy of its audited accounts to the minister responsible, together with a copy of any report made by the auditor, three months after the end of each financial year.

Storr says the new executive board’s goal is to solve the issues they met in place as quickly as possible.

He says an operational audit will now become a forensic audit.