IT IS GOOD that Jamaica and the rest of its Caribbean Community partners have worked out their problems relating to cost-sharing for the Bruce Golding government in Kingston to maintain the Jamaica Defence Force relief operational base in earthquake-devastated Haiti until March 5.

Severely cash-strapped long before the earthquake nightmare descended upon poverty-stricken Hait on the night of January 12, Jamaica had, nevertheless, committed itself to playing a key role as the identified central focal point by CARICOM for its coordinated regional response in the provision of emergency relief aid and rescue operations.

It was in that context that a Jamaica Defence Force aircraft had flown to Haiti with military, health and Fire Bridge personnel, trained for such emergencies, along with supplies of food, water and medicine for distribution from an operational camp based in the vicinity of Haiti's international airport.

However, as some arrangements went awry in the disbursements of financial pledges, as well as in the emergency supplies of food, medicine and other essentials, the Jamaica government signalled last Wednesday its intention to "pull out" its troops and cease playing a key role in Haiti in view of an evident failure by CARICOM to honour pledged commitments.

That "pull-out" threat did not sit well with either the CARICOM Secretariat or the Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), both of which went on record as declaring that they were "in the dark" about the specific claims of Jamaica. Quickly, CDEMA, in collaboration with the Community Secretariat, moved to ease the financial burden then being borne by Jamaica at a cost of some JAM$40 million (about BB$11.2 million) by last month end.

As Jamaica dropped its threat and efforts were expedited to complete the due payments for January, other states were reported to be "rushing" their individual commitments with The Bahamas deciding to close the remaining deficit

More encouragingly, following the second CARICOM assessment mission to Port-au-Prince last Saturday, that included a meeting with Haitian President René Preval, the community arranged to fully refund Jamaica the expenditures incurred in operationalising the regional relief programme.

A number of CARICOM countries continue to respond to the appeal being coordinated by the Community Secretariat for medical personnel in various fields whose services will be provided on a rotation basis.

At the weekend, the Guyana government announced that its pledge of US$1 million to Haiti will be available to CARICOM to help support a primary health intervention programme in Haiti's post-earthquake recovery and rehabilitation efforts.