The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

MARVIN Dames, former deputy commissioner of police and the Free National Movement’s candidate for Mount Mariah, has criticised the government’s hurricane preparedness and response.

“One of the things that is my expertise is crisis management, referring not only to management of hurricanes but I’ve written manuals,” Mr Dames told The Tribune in a recent interview. “I’ve had extensive training around the world on hurricanes and terrorism management, tsunamis, major flooding.

“That brings me to question how we managed this recent crisis. Matthew really brought it all home to us. With crisis, you have to start with any number of steps. What happens before, how you manage during the crisis, how you manage post-crisis and how quickly you can get your systems running up again to mitigate against financial losses and any other form of losses.

“How can you return and in our case, how can we marshal our resources in such a way that we can return the country in to normal as quickly as possible?”

Mr Dames echoed the criticism that FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis had of the government when he spoke to the media last week.

Resources like food and trucks should have been stored and ready to go before the hurricane arrived, not after, Mr Dames said.

His comments to The Tribune came after he and other FNM members toured the Grand Bahama area last week.

“Planning must be years out,” he said. “We should’ve been in a position where we say immediately after a storm, we should’ve had mobile homes mobilised to come in or we say how can we make provisions to accommodate these people.”

Mr Dames also said the government should have had a relief fund in place to deal with natural disasters.

“Given all we are susceptible to, we should have a crisis fund, created on a continuous basis and not just in response to an inevitable crisis,” he said.

Last week, Dr Minnis told reporters that he thinks the government’s Hurricane Matthew recovery and restoration efforts will involve cronyism and victimisation.

He also criticised the government’s response before and after the storm.

“We know the PLP has a history of cronyism, a history of dishonesty and a history of corruption and a history of victimisation,” Dr Minnis said. “I am not really listening to what they say about transparency and how they are going to not look at the political landscape. An election is coming. If they have demonstrated overt victimisation and cronyism immediately after the last election, God help what they can do with the coming election just to ensure they have the advantage to win.

“The FNM will closely monitor how this government spends the people’s money. We will monitor the involvement of Shane Gibson to ensure that all of the PLP generals, as we’ve seen with Hurricane Joaquin, are not given their orders as to whom and who they have to look after. The PLP has a history of that. A leopard does not change its colours overnight. They will continue, and I urge the Bahamian populace that when they see overt victimisation and discrimination, which is inevitable with this government because they can’t help themselves, they must report it to the FNM and we will be vigilant about this and we will be on top of the PLP like white on rice.”

In response, Prime Minister Perry Christie said he was “disappointed” that Dr Minnis would use Hurricane Matthew as a tool to “divide the country politically” instead of acknowledging that the government is “doing a good job” in the aftermath.

He also called Dr Minnis’ accusation that the government’s recovery and restoration efforts will involve cronyism and victimisation “one of the most idiotic” statements he has ever heard.