Floods: Donor communities commend govt

Accra, Sept. 22, GNA--Members of the donor community and international development partners have commended government for the swift and efficient manner in which it responded to the flooding disaster in the three northern regions.

At a high level meeting between heads of the agencies and the inter-ministerial cabinet committee on the disaster, they noted that the government's response, given the constraints of the situation, had been impressive. They also expressed interest at the manner in which Ghana's cultural and traditional systems, had allowed the absorption of a lot of the displaced persons into the homes of extended family and friends. These together they noted, had helped to halt the worsening of the disaster.

A release by Mrs. Oboshie Sai-Cofie, Minister of Information and National Orientation in Accra on Saturday said this was the outcome of a high-level meeting between the inter-ministerial committee on the disaster and heads of the donor community and international agencies. The meeting, chaired by Mrs. Mary Chinery-Hesse, Chief Adviser to the President and Chairperson of the committee reviewed the report of the joint assessment team that toured the three affected regions earlier this week.

The meeting agreed that the joint assessment team did not make any head count of the disaster victims and therefore did not challenge the preliminary figures made by government immediately after the disaster.

It noted that because most of the victims have since merged into the traditional family system, it was impossible for the joint assessment team to see all those who had been affected.

The M eeting agreed that what was needed now was for immediate life-saving relief to continue to be delivered to the affected regions, to help reduce the suffering of the victims.

In this connection it was confirmed that there was the immediate need for civil engineering works to rebuild broken down roads, bridges and houses.

It was also noted that immediate food and medicinal aid among others must be delivered to the victims, to complement the efforts by the government which has so far spent more than 6 billion Cedis in aid to the affected areas.

The meeting, the donor agencies and international development partners announced donations and pledges that they had made in response to the crisis.