A motion brought by Opposition Leader Wavel Ramkalawan for the Department of Risk and Disaster Management (DRDM) to be included on the Planning Authority was approved unanimously.
In presenting his motion Ramkalawan said that the DRDM did a lot of work at district as well as national level to prevent disasters. Its members were in a very good position to state if there was any potential danger in a particular area before the Planning Authority gave the go-ahead for a development project. It had been included on the body that made such decisions in the past and should be again.
Bel Ombre MNA Nicholas Prea supported the motion, stating that the DRDM had proved its worth after the 2004 tsunami even though it had not existed for long. It had advised all districts on the need for their own contingency plans and had drawn up a disaster management plan for Praslin.
MNA David Payet from SPPF-Parti Lepep lashed out at the department for not helping people in need, embarrassing his own party colleagues in the process. Other SPPF members, namely Marie-Louise Potter, tried to dampen the role of DRDM by suggesting that the department be included only on a technical sub-committee of the Planning Authority.
SNP MNA Jean-François Ferrari pointed out that the role of the DRDM was mostly preventive and risk-eliminating. It would therefore not have the power to prevent what it had perceived as imminent disaster if it was not included at the highest level of the decision making body.
In his summing up, the Leader of the Opposition echoed what MNA Ferrari had said and added that if the DRDM had been included on the Planning Authority only some time back, many decisions that had led to catastrophic results could have been prevented.
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