ANDMA ready for summer’s natural disasters

KABUL or lower house of the Parliament was told on Monday.

ANDMA deputy head, Mohammad Daim Kakar, was summoned to the Wolesi Jirga to brief parliamentarians about their plans for upcoming summer.

“A survey last year has showed that 5.3 million Afghans are under threat of natural disasters,” Kakar told the house, adding his department was ready to provide emergency aid to the said number of people.

“We have in stocks 47 metric tonnes of wheat, more than 20,000 tonnes of rice, 45,000 packages of other edibles, 9,000 blankets, 9,600 canes of ghee, 47,800 pieces of other items in 10 vulnerable provinces,” he said.

The Afghan Red Crescent Society has pledged about 14 million afghanis ($304,480) for possible victims of natural disasters in summer, while the Ministry of Defence promised to provide helicopters to ANDMA to cope with an emergency situation, Kakar said.

Last year, more than 100 people had died, thousands of houses destroyed and hundreds of acres of farmland washed way by flash floods in various parts of Afghanistan.

MP Sakhi Mashwani from Kunar province criticised ANDMA for failing to help victims of last year’s disasters. “They did not provide any considerable assistance to needy people,” he said.

Minister for rural rehabilitation and development, Jarullah Mansoori, who is also a member of ANDMA, linked ANDMA’s failure in providing timely assistance to affected people to lack of adequate budget, delay in assistance from donors and mountainous regions.

frm/ma

Visits: 5