WATCH: Holness promises to help fire victims
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Tuesday assured residents in central Kingston and Fletchers Land that the Government will provide assistance to people who were affected by the recent fire in the communities.
Holness, who visited the area Tuesday afternoon, advised residents that his Administration would do its best to assist those who were displaced by last Wednesday’s fire.
In outlining his plan of action Holness stated “Before we can assist in any meaningful way other than the humanitarian assistance, which is already… in train, the building assistance we have to determine the ownership of the land that’s number one, and then we have to do some social investigation into the circumstances of the persons to determine the extent to which we can help.”
“All of that we are going to put into train to ensure that we can help the persons dislocated to come back to some form of normalcy,” he stated.
He added that individuals who do not have documents to prove ownership, will also receive assistance.
“For those persons who are living on property that they don’t own or don’t have the title to, then we still will help, but we will help you maybe with building materials or some other form of assistance. But we cannot build on land that is not our land or we don’t have the rights to build on it,” he stressed.
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“And so, for those that they don’t have the title or they know who the owners are, then we will seek to get permission from the owners to build.”
The assistance, he added, will be given “as soon as possible.”