-work ongoing for development of disaster management structures in all regions

WITH lots of work done throughout 2024 to boost disaster risk management across the country, Prime Minister Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips has said that works are ongoing to build out these structures across all regions.

The Prime Minister made the foregoing information known during his end-of-year press conference, which was held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Monday.

Delving into details concerning Guyana’s Civil Defence Commission (CDC), which falls under his portfolio, he said that in terms of policy development, the reform of the disaster risk management bill is ongoing.

He added that they have been working with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) on the upgrading of the early warning systems.

He said: “There are some communities that are affected by high winds, especially the hinterland, and the early warning system will be helpful in helping them to be prepared to mitigate against any damages [from] those incidents.”

Pertaining to the legislation, he noted that the government is working towards having the comprehensive disaster management legislation placed before the National Assembly soon, and that issues related to audited skills management went through several iterations and studies to arrive at this point.

“So, we have a document now that we would like to take before the National Assembly to legislate the operations of the Civil Defence Commission,” the PM said, adding that there has been an ongoing build-out in relation to its reach.

“You know, we are building out; for each region, we would like them to have their own disaster management structure,” he added.

He said, too, that a lot of work in this regard has been done in Region Nine, as there already exists a structure in terms of shelter and storage. And further, the Regional Democratic Council has a CDC structure that is operational and works with the central CDC.