Emergency management agency urges states to establish a workable trust fund

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January 29, 2016 4:49 PM

NEMA advised that the Emergency Trust Fund should be established through appropriate legislations.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has called on the State governments in Nigeria to establish Emergency Trust Fund for its disaster agencies to be funded with 1% of internally generated revenue and 1% of monthly allocation from the Federation Account to the states.

Pulse gathered that stakeholders advocating for the establishment of emergency trust fund said it has become necessary due to lack of defined funding sources and allocation criteria for the SEMAs by state governments resulting to over reliance on NEMA.

Speaking at the annual consultative meeting with stakeholders, NEMA’s Director General, Muhammad Sani Sidi said there must be strong coordination among critical stakeholders.

Sani-Sidi said coordinating agencies both at the Federal and State must be effective in disaster management and humanitarian services.

“Disaster Management cannot be affectively achieved by one tier of government alone. Government institutions, the private sector, local and international organizations and individual must work together for a nation like ours to meet its objectives of emergency management, disaster risk reduction and the building of strong national resilience,” Sani Sidi said.

While urging for the establishment of the Emergency Trust Fund, Sani Sidi stressed that coordination allow all personnel and agencies involved in emergency management to work together for enhanced service delivery.

“We are to work with the main goal of saving lives, protection of properties, critical national assets and infrastructure and the complete restoration of normalcy in the aftermath of disasters,” Saini- Saidi said.

A communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, observed that most SEMAs were not established by law and those established by law were not functional and lacked proper structure with full complement of departments, units and staff.

Meanwhile, the Director General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mohammed Sani Sidi on Thursday visited Kaduna State over the fire incident that rocked Rail way Station round about Market.

Sani- Sidi who was received at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House by the Kaduna State Deputy Governor, Bala Barnabas Bantex, before interacting with the traders, described the incident as unfortunate.

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