THE Jamaican Government has begun to withdraw aid workers from Haiti, citing its inability to financially sustain relief operations in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation.

But last night secretary general of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), Edwin Carrington said the secretariat was not officially informed about Jamaicas pull-out from Haiti.

Both Carrington, who was finalising arrangements for another follow-up Caricom humanitarian mission to the devastated Haiti, as well as head of the Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency, Jeremy Collymore, told the Observer last night that they were in the dark about any planned decision by the Jamaican Government to pull out.

Daryl Vaz, the minister in charge of the information portfolio, told yesterdays post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House in Kingston that the country had already spent close to $40 million on the Haitian relief efforts in the month of January alone.

The Ministry of National Security indicated that there would be a need to withdraw the troops out of Haiti, based on the cost of approximately $773,000 per day and the fact that up until now we havent been able to get any funding to (help carry out) this operation from international donor agencies, said Vaz.

We have done a remarkable job with the limited resources that we have in helping our sister nation during these last few weeks and based on constraints, of course which we are of all aware of, without any further funding we will not be in a position to sustain the operations that we have been carrying out there, he said.

He added that soldiers and all aid workers associated with Government would have to be recalled.

Some 59 members of the Jamaica Defence Force, including 11 officers, under the direction of Major Jamie Ogilvie, were stationed in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince up to last week. Also, 10 members of the Jamaica Fire Brigade and a team of 21 medical personnel, led by consultant orthopaedic surgeon Dr Derrick McDowell, have been dispatched to Haiti since the January 12 earthquake that is believed to have killed more than 150,000 people.

According to Vaz, Jamaica began withdrawing its relief team on Saturday and should complete this process by tomorrow. The minister said, however, that relief efforts would continue in terms of donations, with the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management continuing to send supplies to Haiti, including donations from civil society.

Vaz stressed that funds earmarked by Caricom immediately after the earthquake hit, were insufficient to sustain the Jamaican relief efforts.

I know that an initial amount, just when the catastrophe struck, was released... Since then, nothing has been forthcoming, he said. He was unable to immediately provide a dollar amount of the Caricom donation.

Carrington, meanwhile, said that while there continued to be some logistical problems in responding to specific needs, the reality was that Caricom in general remained committed, at varying levels, in responding to the immediate challenges to provide humanitarian aid to Haiti.

He mentioned, among committed financial assistance, those of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana of US$1 million each, plus the numerous responses in basic needs like food, medicine, potable water, and clothing, being provided by various member states of the Community, amid ongoing assessments on other requirements.

It was not immediately clear last night if the committed financial assistance from Trinidad and Guyana had been handed over.

Both Carrington and Collymore said that they were unaware of any official complaints from Jamaican authorities about the claimed lack of Caricoms commitment to work with Prime Minister Bruce Goldings administration since Kingston had been identified as the focal point for the Communitys response to the horrific Haitian earthquake disaster.

There is no question on our part, said Carrington, of the firm commitment of the regional grouping to work as closely as possible with the Government of Jamaica in our shared concerns and collective efforts to help ease the pain and devastation in Haiti.

Carrington added that as far as he was aware, Caricom and the Golding administration remained fully engaged with respect to treating Jamaica as the primary hub for the regions responses to Haitis needs.