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The City of Johannesburg’s Public Safety Department has recently embarked on a critical two-day strategic Disaster Management Workshop, the first phase of the development of a new City-wide Disaster Management Strategy and accompanying policies.
The City constantly undergoes dynamic growth both in development and population and faces underlying vulnerability such as ageing infrastructure as well as both natural and human-induced hazards. These pose as major disaster risks to the lives and livelihoods of our residents. In addition to the existing natural disasters that occur in the City such as fires and floods, the City needs to also be fully prepared for potential man-made disasters and even sabotage attacks.
This first phase of the workshop targeted the City’s internal Departments and entities to contribute to the new strategy.
This workshop also formed part of the transversal priorities under the coordination of the Chief Operating Officer with a particular focus being on multidisciplinary efforts in disaster risk reduction and improved coordination between City role-players when responding to incidents. This further entails review process of the Citywide Disaster Management Plan.
Public Safety MMC, Michael Sun, said at the workshop, “We need to adopt an ‘All-hands-on-deck’ approach when dealing with risks and actual disaster in the City, each one of the City’s functions must identify and take ownership of the risks and management of disasters under the co-ordination of Disaster Management. It is just as important for the residents in the City to be prepared and trained to deal with incidences of emergencies when disasters strike. We have a huge task ahead and I expect all of you to extend a helping hand to victims affected by disasters”.
The Department of Public Safety will through the year announce further events and training opportunities on disaster management, targeting various levels of the administration.
We encourage all relevant City role-players to fully participate in this process to that will ultimately help build a disaster resilient and prepared City.
We will continue to work towards instilling a culture of Disaster Management is everyone’s business.
For media queries:
Luyanda Longwe
Stakeholder Manager: MMC for Public Safety
061 496 0536
luyandalo@joburg.org.za
