The Kavango West Regional Council (KWRC) said funds mitigating disasters should be decentralised to all 14 regions.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Senior Public Relations Officer Tenga Salomo said KWRC is concerned over the mitigating strategies of disasters in the region that are facilitated by the National Disaster Risk Management Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office when it involves money.

“The distress is as a result that disasters carry an emergency approach and that many a times solutions provided by the regional disaster risk management turn to have no impact when funds are needed as the contingency fund that deals with emergencies is centralised at national level,” he said.

He said the council thus requests for the decentralisation of emergency budgets aimed at addressing the effects of disasters in the region.

Salomo said the current practice takes longer and it is too cumbersome to access the funds from the Office of the Prime Minister.

He said the process of having the disaster situation assessed first either by a team at national level and a report produced before a solution can be implemented is delaying in instances when the situation needs an immediate solution.

He said the region experienced challenges such as veld fires leading to the destruction of infrastructures like fences including loss of livestock and the human-wildlife conflict.

Salomo said these issues were discussed during the induction workshop for KWRC currently taking place in Otjiwarongo.

He said during the ongoing workshop new members for the regional disaster risk management committee were elected and they also conducted a review of the regional multi-hazard contingency plan.

The workshop also discussed issues ranging from disaster risk management framework, activation of the emergency operation centre as well as hazard and risk analysis.

Source: The Namibia Press Agency