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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
AGENCY
Background
The Emergency Relief Agency
has been established in the state long before the
inception of this administration. The various legislations
had been Decree No. 119 of 1993, which amended Decree 48
of 1976. The former had vested the chairmanship of the
Agency in the Chief of General Staff. The National
Emergency Management Agency Act also vests the
chairmanship of the Agency in the Chief of General Staff,
which translates into the Office of the Vice President
under this dispensation.
Accordingly, Emergency
Management Agency at the State level is located in the
Office of the Deputy Governor. The functions/Achievements
of the Agency are as follows:
Achievements
The Agency’s main focus is
on the alleviation of suffering of disaster victims
through the provision of relief materials medications and
where necessary rehabilitation is needed. This is done to
both man-made disaster victims and natural disaster
victims. Since the inception of this Administration,
relief materials have become a household word in the state
because of the compelling presence of the Emergency
Management Agency wherever disaster occurs.
The Agency has had to
contend with:
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Man-made disaster and
their victims
-
Natural disaster and
their victims.
Budget
Another area of great
success has been in the budget. About N200 million had
been budgeted for the operation of the Agency within the
period, although far much less has actually been received.
This is so because the state has hiccups so very often and
it is struggling to save itself from the debilitating fall
from the raging global recession and the vicious
politico-economic machinations.
The stride that the Agency
has made in the period under review can be credited to the
current chairman: a personage, His Excellency Obong (Dr.)
Chris Ekpenyong, the Deputy Governor. By his own
directive, the Agency has been given a separate subhead to
which approvals are charged. Hitherto, the procedure was
haphazard and unpredictable. Funds could be requested from
anywhere, which made for much of the uncertainty and
tardiness of the operation of the Agency. It is to the
credit of the Chairman too, that some public and private
buildings in this state are still in use following our
intervention.
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