Northern Governor Gary Juffa question’s the government on its emergency plans

Northern Governor Gary Juffa today [Tuesday] in Parliament raised a series of concerns questioning the current laws that enable the government to respond to emergency calls during disasters.

Mr Juffa questioned the government on its plans and how best can the country respond when natural disasters occur.

The questions were in relation to the devastating landslip that buried a significant number of people in Mulitaka, Enga province two weeks ago.

"My questions are in relation to planning, in relation to what are we going to do as a government going forward in managing this type of disasters so that we can respond in a swift manner and be able to help our people recover," Mr Juffa said prior to his questions.

"Current disaster laws are outdated. The protocols for response are outdated."

The Governor's questions were directed to the defence minister during question time this morning.

The questions were prompted by the recent turnout of events in Enga, examining the way the national government responded.

"What plans does the ministry have to review these laws, will the ministry be carrying out an audit of the recent event to find out what could be done, what could be improved so that we can be able to better respond to such disasters," Mr Juffa said.

"Does the national government have plans to assist provinces in building provincial disaster management centers."

He added that Northern province has set aside K1m to build a provincial disaster management center and asked if the government and development partners could provide counter funding.

Mr Juffa also raised concerns on key emergency departments responsible for responding to SOS calls in emergency cases.

He concluded his questions by asking if the Defense ministry can provide awareness to inform and equip people with necessary information so that they respond to an emergency in quick time.

Defence Minister Dr Billy Joseph, who has been proactive in receiving disaster relief supplies from international donors and partners said the country has been operating on ad-hoc basis in regard to disaster response at the provincial and national level.

He expressed disunity between the functions at both levels.

"The fire department is with Defence ministry, we don't have a national ambulance service and the search and rescue service is under Maritime safety authority and so you can understand that these critical national emergency and disaster management departments are not in one place," Mr Joseph said.
"So when we have a disaster, it is difficult to conduct.

He added that the national disaster act dates back to 1984 since it was passed and it empowers the provincial disaster committee to act swiftly as the first responders with provincial administrator as the leader.

He said the national disaster team acts upon information provided by the provincial committee and the response depends on how fast the report is provided to the government.

"We reassess and define what kind of help they need, and we ask the national government and international partners to help us to make sure the provincial disaster management committee has all the resources they need to power the support where the disaster is."

Mr Joseph, although didn't attend to each question, assured the parliament that he would respond appropriately with a ministerial statement in the next session.