Preliminary report on flood step to successful recovery – PM Phillips
–CDEMA praises CDC for disaster response
Prime Minister Hon. Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips says the preliminary report on Guyana’s flood disaster presented on Wednesday by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) team, is a major step towards the country’s recovery.
The team met with the Prime Minister, the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) and a number of Government Ministers whose sectors were impacted by the recent floods.
“My understanding is that after this phase here, there are two other steps that we will commission that will help us to plan our recovery from the floods.”
As you know, recovery in a sense is getting the whole development process back on the road, so to speak, in terms of infrastructure development, getting the livelihood of the people who were affected by the flooding back on stream. So, this will help us to determine the inputs from all the sectors,” The Prime Minister said following the meeting.
PM Phillips said a more detailed report will be presented to the Government, and the final steps to recovery will begin in an informed manner.
Meanwhile, Director General of the Civil Defence Commission, Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig said the data gathering or preliminary assessment called the Dana Continuum has allowed his team to identify things needed to enable a speedy recovery.
“At this stage there are some immediate actions that we would have derived from this assessment such as improved response in the regions and community levels in terms of areas when it comes to water contamination and health responses, areas when it comes to provision of food supplies, areas in the area of coordination and management, so they are immediate actions that we would have already identified and would be taking to improve our response,’ he stated.
Executive Director (Ag) of CDEMA, Ms. Elizabeth Riley said she was pleased with the outcome of the meeting and general work of teams on the ground. Ms. Riley praised the well organised work of the CDC.
“We looked at a range of sectors, we look at the extent to which the coordination was being effective within the sectors and I think one of the very good finding has been that the Civil Defence Commission under the leadership of Colonel Craig has done an excellent job in the overall coordination thus far. We have also seen relatively good coordination at the regional level as well,” she noted.
Minister of Public Works, Hon. Bishop Juan Edghill, Minister of Health, Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony, Minister of Finance, Hon. Dr. Ashni Singh, Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Zulfikar Mustapha and Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Hon, Nigel Dharamlall were also present at the meeting.
The CDC team headed by Lieutenant Colonel Craig included Major Salim October.
The CDEMA team arrived in Guyana a week ago following a request by the Government.