Coordination of disaster efforts essential: Aopi

COORDINATION of earthquake disaster relief efforts is essential to maximise benefits to victims and limit unequal distribution, Oil Search executive general manager (stakeholder engagement) Gerea Aopi says.
Aopi said Oil Search had been doing this as one of the first respondents to the earthquake and would slowly relinquish that role as authorities came on board.
“I think it is really good with having Moro as the hub where we coordinate with other organisations,” he said.
“When we went in first, we coordinated our efforts so not everyone is going to one village at the same time.
“So if ExxonMobil is going into the village, we stay clear from there and go onto other affected locations.
“That is working very well at the moment. We coordinate on a daily basis.
“We give situation reports to all the organisations which are providing relief, on which villages we have distributed to and what are our plans for the next 24 hours, so not everyone is going to one village.”
Aopi said it would be ideal to have all relief efforts coordinated by the National Disaster Coordination Centre and Oil Search initial works would provide stability to allow for this.
“We are still providing, but at some point we will slowly move out and other agencies like the United Nations and Red Cross will come in and take over,” he said.
“Our initial response was to go in first and help our communities, which we have done. Once things stabilise, there will be other agencies coming in and we can start focusing on our core business activities.”