Robert Hart - Staff Reporter
THE PLANNING Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) has revised the estimate of damage caused by September's passage of Hurricane Ivan to $35 billion. The latest figure is more than 50 per cent above the $22.4 billion stated last month by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, who had indicated then that the estimate was likely to go up.
"This is based now on totality of damage, that is, the actual damage and damage resulting in loss of income or earnings in the years ahead," Information Minister Burchell Whiteman told journalists during yesterday's regular briefing following the weekly Cabinet meeting at Jamaica House.
The latest estimate is contained in a PIOJ report on the macroeconomic assessment of damage caused by the hurricane, which battered the island and left crops and homes destroyed across the country. The report, received by Cabinet yesterday, will be tabled in the House of Representatives this afternoon. Wesley Hughes, director-general at the institute, will outline the findings contained in the report at a press conference scheduled for tomorrow.
"While this document is in a sense a final document, I don't think it should be taken absolutely as the last word," Mr. Whiteman said.
