Director General of the National Management Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) Major RTD Dr. Joseph Bikanyi Kuyon has called for intensive capacity building for NADMO employees.
Speaking in an interview on TV3’s Hot Issues, Sunday, April 13, 2025, he said the current NADMO staff are not well-trained to be able to deal with disaster management.
Although he admits that NADMO workers are trained, Dr. Kuyon claimed that a lot of training is needed for these workers.
“We also need what we call capacity building in terms of staff. The staff that we have – are they well trained to use some of these equipment that are required. So we are also looking at staff training, where we would have very capable staff that not just the equipment but we should be able to also have ready staff.
“(Our staff need) a lot of training. They can save us but they will be able to do better when they are well-trained and have knowledge,” he noted.
He further stressed that NADMO lacks equipment like boots, excavators etc to be able to provide efficient services when disaster occurs.
“In terms of rescue equipment. For instance; not all our outstations have vehicles, even regional level we don’t have equipment like bulldozers, excavators and tipper trucks required to do our work. Even the boots that we used to have in terms of flooding are very few. They cannot support,” he said.
Commenting about the funding for NADMO, he argued that the NADMO fund is not sustainable as there is no constant flow of cash into the fund, rather over reliance on donations from individuals and agencies.
“If you look at the National Disaster Management Fund, it was established under Rawling in 1996 but what we failed to do was to make the fund self-sustaining.
“So, there was no identified, constant flow of cash into the fund. We rely on government putting some money into the Fund, some individuals and agencies contributing to the Fund,” he stated.
