ONS Engages Disaster Management Stakeholders

In recent times disaster has become one of the main causes of destruction of lives and properties which calls for a serious concern for the country. The engagement revealed that it is better to prevent disaster than respond to disaster. The Project Coordinator for the Freetown Emergency Recovery Project Neilford Rose said in addition to enhancing the improvement of water and sanitation facilities, rehabilitation of roads and bridges, improve waste management, and environmental management, the project also would be strengthening the capacity of ONS and  aims at forming a separate agency that would specifically focused on disaster management. Neilford Rose added that an emergency operational center would be established.

Assistant Director for Disaster Risk Reduction Philomina Isatu Turay said the fight to prevent disaster is everybody’s business and that people have the responsibility to prevent disaster in their communities, citing that success of the project to a large extent depends on the participation of the 13 targeted communities.

One of the Stakeholders Elenorah Jokomie Metzger cited that the act of people building houses in waterways is a recipe for disaster and that deforestation is one major cause of mudslide in the Western Rural Area especially around the Peninsula. She called on the ministries and agencies responsible for the prevention of disaster to step up and do their job devoid of political sentiment, as according to her politics is eating the fabric of this nation due to peoples’ allegiance to their Political Parties than the safety and development of the country. 

ONS believes that if the 13 targeted disaster prone communities take the reduction of disaster as a joint responsibility and refrain from building houses in disaster prone areas the dangers would be prevented if not stopped.