JAMP to launch public hurricane relief tracker

 

Fed up with unanswered questions around Hurricane Melissa relief, civil society groups are now arming the public with a new accountability weapon via the introduction of a public hurricane relief tracker. 

 

The effort, led by Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal (JAMP), will act as a public accountability meter.

 

According to Executive Director of JAMP, Jeanette Calder the move will empower citizens to call out delays, document failures and demand transparency in real time. 

 

The government has been under pressure to establish an independent oversight committee to oversee the

handling of monetary donations, the dissemination of aid as well as other recovery efforts. 

 

Its apparent delay has a drawn increased criticism, as nearly a month after Melissa, Cabinet says it is still working through the details of the committee. 

 

It is why Ms. Calder says civil society organisations must now lead the crucial charge in ensuring accountability. 

 

"We can create a public hurricane relief tracker, and if JAMP has done six trackers, built two which we're

about to launch, you know we're already thinking about this, you know that. We have our eyes on a public hurricane relief tracker where we're gonna record every dollar announced, every contract awarded, every project started and completed, and every family that is still waiting for help. We're gonna make it visual, make it shareable and update it on a bi-weekly basis," she announced.

 

The tracker is one of four mechanisms she believes will be effective in the bid to gain transparency and integrity. 

 

"I think we can form parish-level hurricane relief monitoring committees, not official government committees but just about 10 to 20 people; third, leverage the technology that we have - WhatsApp, text, Facebook to document videos - load it up to our site; and fourth, we're gonna partner with the media. We're gonna create public scorecards, we're gonna give journalists the data that they want for the content they want to create, and every month we can publish a scorecard weighting government on the four things that we need to know about - transparency, speed, equity, and quality," she outlined. 

 

National Integrity Action (NIA) has said it will also support the effort.