House Commission V: Institutional integration needed for disaster management
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Deputy Chairman of House Commission V of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI), Syaiful Huda, has said that institutional integration is needed to handle disaster affairs, including integrating instructions on the ground.
According to him, this has become a crucial proposal developing within Commission V, given that institutions involved in disaster management have so far operated with their own separate duties and functions.
“We want this to be consolidated going forward through institutional integration, so that a single command can actually work,” Syaiful Huda said at the parliamentary complex in Jakarta on Thursday.
In addition, he said, the disaster management budget also needs to be focused within a single institution. From that one institution, the disaster budget would then be disseminated to other agencies according to their respective duties and functions.
He said that a country as large as Indonesia has a considerably high disaster potential.
Based on past experience, he said disaster affairs must be organised on a large scale because the duties and functions of handling them are divided across various institutions.
Therefore, Syaiful said, institutional integration is needed that would ultimately have a single authority to handle various disaster-related issues.
Once that single institution is formed, he is confident that budget affirmation will be sufficiently robust in responding to both the emergency response phase and the post-emergency phase.
“So that all resources do not stop during the emergency response, but also continue to ensure that all public services and all infrastructure can be restored to their original condition,” he said.
However, he said there must also be a budget that cannot be used for anything else and is deliberately reserved specifically for disaster matters. This is necessary so that disaster management is not short-term in nature.
Regarding the earthquake that occurred in East Nusa Tenggara, Syaiful stated that Commission V has already coordinated with the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) and the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).
According to him, these institutions must accelerate the dissemination of disaster information to the people of East Nusa Tenggara because public attention to information often faces obstacles on the ground.
“We are pleased because our colleagues at Basarnas have been quite agile and quick in carrying out rescue work, and ultimately the investigation and mitigation, especially evacuating people directly affected, could be carried out well,” he said.