Griffith: National disaster preparing for national disaster

“The bulk of the Government’s planning and preparation...

involved nothing other than last minute assurances by relevant officials to ‘stay calm’, whilst plastering dozens of contact numbers and sending advisories about what to do in flood, which anyone can acquire online,” Griffith said.

“Such last minute bulletins can cause the public to rely on bulletins by non-authorised agencies, (which) can lead to conflicting reports and at times, cause more harm than good.” Griffith was also critical of Government’s decision to place the assets of the National Operations Centre (NOC) under the Strategic Services Agency.

“The previous administration left a gold mine to deal with natural and man-made disasters.

Unfortunately, due to petty politics and lack of understanding, those in authority have now totally disregarded what was stated in this Commission of Inquiry, and watered down a critical element in National Security into a sub unit of a spy agency.

“We have returned to the backward system whereby one hand does not know what the other is doing.” Griffith said it was “comical” to say the Office Of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) was in control because “the ODPM is not a coordinating agency and cannot coordinate or direct any other law enforcement or state agency.” He argued that the ODPM is supposed to be an arm of the NOC, “whereby if there is a man-made or natural disaster, then each arm of law enforcement...would each have representatives and likewise, there would be a representative from other ministries (as well as) representatives from the Radar Centre, TT Met Office, CCTV Command Centre, ODPM, TSTT, WASA and TTEC, all under one roof...so there could be immediate sharing of information, collaboration and receipt of any distress call and a timely joint response by different arms.”