December 23, 2008 Tuesday Zilhaj 24, 1429
Effective policy on disaster management stressed
By Khawar Ghumman
ISLAMABAD, Dec 22: In recent years, the country has suffered natural and man-made calamities one after the other but the government is yet to come up with Standing Operating Procedures (SOPs) for effective disaster management.
This observation was made during a discussion on an audit report submitted to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly on Monday. Confusion mars the work of Emergency Relief Cell (ERC) and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the committee said and asked the cabinet division to come up with clear policy guidelines for their domains.
The PAC met here at the parliament house with Choudhry Nisar Ali Khan in the chair.
Be it Ghakkar plaza inferno, Marriott bombing or recent Balochistan earthquake, government response to these calamities was poor, the committee members observed.
We stand nowhere when it comes to effectively deal with the adversities and the PAC strongly recommends to the government to get professional help in this regard from developed world so that incidents like Ghakkar plaza inferno do not repeat in which more than a dozen people lost their lives", chairman PAC Choudhary Nisar Ali Khan said.
Referring to the Marriott bombing in which over 50 people were killed, Choudhary Nisar said despite repeated failures under such conditions the government agencies could not come up with an organisation or plan which could effectively meet such challenges.
When a cabinet division official tried to defend the NDMA's response to Balochistan earthquake, Mr Nisar said: "The entire world had seen live our capability on television when Ghakkar plaza gutted despite being right in the heart of twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, which are supposed to have a state-of-the-art equipment to handle such circumstances".
According to the audit brief for the PAC on the Cabinet Division under which the NDMA operates, contrary to best international practices the country lacks a consolidated disaster management plan which leads to isolated efforts by individual departments.
The report pointed out that national, provincial, district or departmental disaster management plans were never made. There were no standard operating procedures (SOPs) at any level of the government.
The government only started talking about the need of the national disaster management system in the country when it was struck with the deadly earthquake on October 8, 2005 and came up with the National Disaster Management Ordinance 2006 and later on the NDMA was established through a notification on January 18 last year.
The PAC asked the Cabinet Division to streamline functions of the ERC and NDMA as, according to the audit report, there involved a duplication of work and no one respond effectively.
At the federal level, the ERC is responsible for the provision of cash as well kind to supplement the resources of provincial governments in the events of major disasters. It coordinates relief activities among different stakeholders and stockpiles certain items of basic necessities.
The NDMA has been given the responsibility for disaster preparedness and mitigation which according to the PAC confuses instead of facilitating the emergency responses to disasters.
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