We did our best

THE National Emergency Management Agency’s (NEMA) responded well to last week’s passage of Hurricane Ivan and the agency is fully capable of treating with any natural disaster in Trinidad and Tobago. This was the word yesterday from NEMA’s commanding officer, Colonel Dave Williams, as he toured flood-affected areas in the Caroni River Basin with a high-powered Cabinet team led by Prime Minister Patrick Manning. Asked by Newsday about claims from Opposition Chief Whip Ganga Singh that NEMA was ill-prepared to handle any natural disaster in TT, Williams replied: “Well, I can say there is a system that works but that is my opinion. Other people are entitled to their own opinion. Given what we have, we certainly responded within the resources that were available at the time.” On Friday, Singh (who is also Caroni East MP) declared: “NEMA is a fraud perpetuated against the people of TT. It signifies nothing about disaster response or disaster effectiveness.”

Questioned further about the apparent lack of public information provided by NEMA during Ivan’s passage, on issues such as the location of emergency shelters in TT, Williams said: “We keep giving out the information and yet still it does not seem to be enough so what we have to do is find better ways of informing the public and hope that we get the message across. We have expended hundreds of thousands of dollars giving out information.” At a news briefing at Whitehall on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said TT’s disaster relief mechanisms worked reasonably well as Hurricane Ivan passed the country but there was a problem concerning the availability of information to the population. Manning also said disaster relief provisions would be enhanced in the 2004/2005 Budget. Asked to comment on the damages suffered by Caroni residents due to Wednesday’s flooding, Williams replied: “My whole role here is to provide answers to questions about the disaster management system.”