High ups of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) told senators on Thursday that absence of the “River Act” in the country and poor implementation of the “Canal Act” had triggered the disaster caused by floods. In his briefing to the Senate Committee on the ‘Sindh Flood Situation, Relief Efforts and Requirements’, NDMA member operation Brigadier Sajid Naeem told the committee that no one was ready to leave home during the recent floods despite repeated warnings. People had erected houses alongside the river embankments and suffered during floods, he said. He told members that disaster management plans were in place but poor implementation had lead to a chaotic situation.
He said total losses were estimated at $10 billion during the floods last year while an aid of $5.0 billion was disbursed amongst victims, adding that $3.0 billion was required to get prepared for floods. Naeem briefed the committee on relief efforts carried out by NDMA and said it had so far distributed 1, 4515 tents amongst flood victims and a further 77,000 tents were in the pipeline. He said 248 causalities had been reported so far and the NDMA had established around 2656 camps for 495115 people in flood affected districts of Sindh.
He told the committee that the Balochistan government had not notified any area as flood-hit so far and so the NDMA had not set up any relief camp in Balochistan. At this, Baloch senators said it was discrimination towards Baloch.
Brigadier Sajjad told the committee that the total annual budget of NDMA was not over Rs 70 million. He said 0.1 million food packets, each one sufficient for a family of seven people for 15 days, would be distributed among flood victims from today. He said further that all buildings in the federal capital were victimised by the earthquake.
However, majority of the members declared figures and statistics provided by the NDMA official as incorrect, observing that NDMA had failed to assess the nature, intensity and volume of the disaster and had not learnt any lesson from last year’s floods.
Senator Nilofer Bakhtiar said no allocations had been made in the Budget 2010-11 for flood management plans. She called for convening a session of the house to discuss and evolve a plan to manage flood disasters. She told the meeting that International Red Cross had taken responsibility of providing essential items including food, shelter, medicines and other necessities to fifty thousand families, affected from the recent floods. Senator Zahid Khan, pointing out ‘massive corruption’ in the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), said funds should be diverted towards the flood victims. He also demanded audit of funds taken by NGOs from international donors in the name of Pakistanis, adding that there was corruption in their accounts.
Senators also entered into an unnecessary argument on petty issues such as the nomination of Senator Semeen Siddiqui as chairperson procurement committee of the Senate fund for flood victims.
