Mixed response over NDMA’s assistance

Pakistan’s foremost disaster management institution, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), has received a mixed response for how it has handled the country’s worst disaster in living memory.

While Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa officials have criticised the NDMA’s work, Sindh is satisfied with the cooperation it has been receiving.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain claims that three weeks into the floods, the NDMA was still absent from the relief operation in the province.

“For ten days, the flooding was only in this province. But we didn’t hear from the NDMA and nor did we see any NDMA official. No one even contacted us,” he said.

Sindh, on the other hand, differs. The southern-most province, which is currently battling the floods, says it is receiving full cooperation from the disaster management authority.

“The NDMA has been of great help [to us] in providing relief and operational items like tents and boats,” said Sharmila Farooqui, adviser to the Sindh chief minister. “So far, we’ve had no problem. In fact we’ve been very lucky that there has been very good coordination between the NDMA, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority and the district disaster management authorities.”

Balochistan, the province most often ignored, also tends to agree with Sindh. Raheela Hameed, provincial minister from Balochistan, said that initially there was a lack of communication between the province and the centre, but the issue was now being addressed by officials.

“In the current flood situation, they [federal government] shared very little information with the provincial government. But for the rehabilitation programme, they have maintained good communication with the provincial government,” she said.

The NDMA has been lauded for how it tackled the Attabad landslide lake crisis that affected thousands of people in Attabad village in Hunza. But the institution, only in its fourth year, is faced by a disaster of epic proportions in the form of these floods.

This discrepancy of attention has been denied by NDMA chief General Nadeem Ahmed who says that the NDMA is only responsible for formulating an official policy on relief and reconstruction. “Field work is not the NDMA’s responsibility, which has to carried out by the district and provincial authorities. We have laid policies and the provinces should implement the response operations,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2010.