Opposition Leader Godwin Friday says that political activists should not be at the forefront of recovery efforts after Hurricane Beryl.
He said that while the Hurricane is a natural disaster that could not have been avoided, the people responding should do so as if it was their own homes that were damaged and they know the urgency.
“The rebuilding effort has to be done on the basis of need,” Friday said on his New Democratic Party’s radio show, New Times, on Monday, adding that this is a point that the party has repeatedly made.
“Since with the volcanic eruption, we urged that any hint of partisanship or any notion that somehow this is for the people who support the government party and so forth more than anybody else because it’s their government or their party that is absolute nonsense,” Friday said.
“And having people who are clearly political activists for the government playing frontal roles — they may want to help and so forth — but you have to be sensitive and say, ‘Listen, you can’t have these people seeming to be at the frontline be the ones who are doing work that NEMO should be doing, that the aid agency should be doing and so forth.”
Friday said that having such people at the forefront gives the impression that the recovery is being treated as something partisan political.
“We can’t have that. And people now, when they see that, they will feel that they’re not going to get the assistance that they need.],” the opposition leader said.
He said the National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) has “a big job to do.
“There is a credibility gap, quite frankly, because when you talk to people about NEMO, they are saying that they want to go ahead and get as much as they can done for themselves because they don’t think they’re gonna get the assistance that they need; certainly not in a timely manner.”
Friday said there seems to be some question or doubt as to how quickly NEMO can or will get to the people impacted by the hurricane.
“That is something that needs to be corrected. So, NEMO has to go on the offensive and say, ‘Listen, we are there for you, we’re coming out in your community, we’re showing you that we are going to provide the assistance that is necessary, not just with the clean-up, or the immediate recovery but with the long-term rebuilding.”
Friday said that having experienced Hurricane Beryl, in the rebuilding, Vincentians can no longer think, “as we’ve done regeneration or two, that hurricane don’t hit St. Vincent”.
He said that the storm has “dramatically turned things upside down.
“So now that we’ve seen this, now we have to build better, we have to rebuild better. And when we’re building in the future, we have to build better so that we could mitigate, minimise the damage from these terrible disasters,” he said.