Fort Augusta to be renovated to house deportees

Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness says "some good" has come out of the decision to accept some 62 deportees who are due to arrive from the United States of America next Tuesday.

Holness said that the United States has agreed to give his Government money to rehabilitate the Fort Augusta facility in St Catherine to be used as a halfway house for deportees.

"It is significant resources," Holness told the Parliament on Tuesday. "We are going to create a facility there that could become a long-term halfway facility to assist when we bring back the deportees."

Despite the threat of the novel coronavirus, which caused the Government to close the airports to incoming passenger traffic, the US government has insisted that Jamaica honours its agreement to receive deportees monthly.

The Ministry of National Security says measures have been put in place to facilitate the safe return and to accommodate the deportees.

"There is a standing agreement where we take back deportees on a monthly basis. Because of the crisis, we have had discussions with our partners in the United States regarding our state of preparedness to take back deportees, and as a result of those discussions, we have managed to delay for a little more than three weeks," the prime minister said.

He told fellow legislators that the Government used the time to negotiate with the United States and was able to secure some assistance for the renovation of the Fort Augusta facility.

"Out of this has come some good because we were able to bring our position to our partners ... we have gotten some good out of it," Holness said.

Meanwhile, the prime minister said that when the deportees arrive next week, they will be quarantined, tested for the coronavirus and monitored before being released into the general population.

Holness did not say where the deportees would be housed during the period of quarantine, but he indicated that the Fort Augusta facility would not be ready to accommodate them.

Formerly used as a prison to house females, the Fort Augusta facility was closed in 2017 and the inmates transferred to South Camp Road Correctional Centre.