No funding for disasters, says Wrakonei

By LORRAINE JIMAL
THE Government has no funding set aside for emergencies in natural disasters, says National Disaster Centre (NDC) director Col Carl Wrakonei.
Wrakonei said provinces affected by natural disasters between 2019 and 2022 only received help from donors, development partners, non-government organisations (NGO) and provinces.
He said since he took up the director’s position in 2019, no funding had come from the Government to set aside for natural disaster emergencies.
He said these were unexpected events and everyone must be prepared for them, both the people and the government.
He said a number of disasters that occurred between 2019 and 2022 had affected parts of the highlands, Wewak, Manus, Madang and others that were unreported.
Wrakonei said these communities were affected by king tides, landslides, floods and the recent one, Manam volcanic eruption.
“We have received reports from the eruption and we have prepared some non-food items stored in our warehouse to be freighted to Madang but are mitigating on means to freight them there,” he said.
When responding to The National questions relating to disaster emergency plans in place to mitigate natural disasters, Wrakonei said they did not have a plan.
Wrakonei said they only planned after receiving warnings and reports from stakeholders and areas affected by disasters.
Meanwhile, he urged people to take precautions and be ready for any unexpected events as there was no funding at the moment to help in any natural disaster.