Following the recent disaster that occurred in the Central and North Bank Regions, the government of the Gambia through the office of the Vice-President, last Friday disbursed cheques for D1m to regional governors and mayors, at a ceremony held at State House in Banjul.

In an interview with this reporter, Essa Khan, the Executive Director of National Disaster Management Committee, said that the money was meant to support disaster victims in various regions in the country.

“The money is said to be part of the government’s disaster relief fund and is distributed according to the size and the severity of the disasters in the various regions,” he added.

Mr. Khan further commended the government for taking the lead role in assisting disaster victims. He then called on all partners and NGOs to emulate and supplement government efforts in helping all disaster victims in the country. He commended the Red Cross for providing some blankets, mosquito nets, and second hand clothing to the Central and North Bank Regions.

He said there are decentralised disaster committee structures across the country, which he said, are headed by regional governors and mayors, with the mandate of quickly responding to disasters by conducting rapid assessment, issue press release on the subject, mobilise community support, moving displaced people to temporal shelters, provide initial feeding for the victims, among others.

He further revealed that they had conducted a countrywide assessment to ascertain some of things on the ground, noting that detailed assessment will soon be finalised for the attention of donors so as to capture their respective mandates and comparative advantages.

He then used the opportunity to kindly request the assessment conducted by NGO’s, to be first verified to ensure that they share the same information.

The distributions of the cheques are as follow:

CRR- D250, 000, NBR -D150, 000, URR -D200, 000, WR-D150, 000, LRR- D100, 000, KMC -D100, 000 and BCC - D50, 000.