Have faith in the system – NEMO

The Director of the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO), Howie Prince wants the members of the public to have more faith in the distribution system.{{more}}

Speaking at the handover of a quantity of humanitarian supplies from the French government last Friday, Prince urged people to “watch the system work” before being critical.

“I have been hearing that we are distributing building materials to people who have not been affected and that was before we started distributing one sheet of galvanize or one piece of board,” NEMO’s top man said.

“We have already been blamed for distributing something that we haven’t started to distribute yet,” he continued.

He explained that there was a systematic way of doing things.

“We don’t do things willy-nilly.”

According to Prince, there is an assessment process beginning with a rapid assessment followed by a social assessment which he explained would be done to determine how much material would be required to repair individual properties.

He said that people were questioning the need for the assessment process to be conducted by so many different individuals.

But it was necessary for the assessment work to be carried out in this way, Prince said.

He said the information was collected and the list of persons generated by individuals at the community level.

Prince said that the 100 or so houses listed as damaged would be the ones that would have to be looked at.

“I don’t even know their names – the list of people that have been verified is the list that we will work with,” the director of NEMO said.

“In terms of transparency, anyone has the right to come at the community level and go see the houses down to be repaired to determine for themselves if the houses were damaged and needed repair – everyone has a right to come check on that,” Prince said. (DD)