General News of Thursday, 3 August 2017
Source: Myjoyonline.com
2017-08-03
Deputy Director-General in charge of Operations at NADMO, Abu Ramadan
The nation’s disaster management agency is tumbling under a weight of debt which is hampering its response time to emergencies.
Another stark example of NADMO’s troubles showed after heavy flood waters in Tamale in the Northern region resulted in two lives lost and several left homeless.
Victims had to wait for over eight days to get relief support from the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).
But Deputy Director-General in charge of Operations at NADMO, Abu Ramadan says the delay in response is partly because of the bureaucratic procurement procedure and the fact that NADMO is broke.
The organization established by the state to respond to emergency situations now requires an emergency response to sustain it, as it has a debt of over ?40million hanging over its necks for more than a year.
As a result, creditors are unwilling to supply items to NADMO for distribution to persons who frantically need help as was the case of Tamale flood victims. Response time can take forever because the organisation has no vehicles to even move relief items from the Head Office in Accra to disaster stricken areas.
The Head Office building reportedly built three years ago, has already started developing cracks and its roofs leaking whenever it rains, the Deputy Director-General lamented.
“We are cash strapped; we don’t even have vehicles,” a worried Abu Ramadan told host of the Super Morning Show, Kojo Yanskon Thursday, August 3, 2017.
Despite the challenges, Mr. Ramadan said management is determined to turn things around and make the organisation become useful to the public especially in time of need.
“We don’t want to do things the way it has been done before…we want to do the right things and the right things must be done on time,” he emphasised. He hinted of plans to move a team from Accra to Wawale in the north, to help in the distribution of relief items to flood victims.
