Centre needs more funding

THE National Disaster Centre needs more funding to manage people who are displaced and seeking refuge in the country, director Col Carl Wrakonei says.
He said the number of internally displaced people affected by natural disasters and conflicts in the country had increased, but government funding was not sufficient to cater for their needs.
“We are planning to do an organisational restructure to improve capacity building and secure sufficient funding from the Government to roll out our programme and address people affected by natural and man-made disasters throughout the country,” he said.
Col Wrakonei revealed that the Disaster Management Act had not been reviewed for 37 years while the centre was understaffed with only 10 employees.
“We are going to review the act and increase the number of our staff up to about 50 people to give us more manpower in the disaster management,” he said. Col Wrakonei said about K2 million given to the centre annually was not enough to cater for people who were displaced and affected by disasters.
He told The National that the centre needed increased funding and improved capacity to adequately handle disasters, including rescue, relief and resettlement of impacted people.
He said most funding his office received came from international partners and donors.
“We work with the United Nations, churches and other governmental and non-governmental organisations to continue our work in the country to help affected and displaced people,” Col Wrakonei said.
Meanwhile, Col Wrakonei said the four phase of disaster risk management – mitigation, preparation, response and recovery – could be achieved through support from all stakeholders.