NDMA, Commerce to assess damage to property, life

MBABANE – NDMA in collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade have developed a tool to assess the damage to property and life caused by t he r ecent pr ot est s t hat turned violent in the country.

The National Disaster Management Agency ( NDMA) together with the ministry has made available an online form for business people and affected homes to fill in relation to damage suffered in that particular business during the protests.

The forms, as detailed by NDMA Director of Early Warning Eric Seyama, will be in two folds. One will be for the business people to give details and extent of the damage to their property while the other form will be for the affected homes to also detail injury or loss of life during the protests.

The forms are available on the NDMA website and for people who won’t have access to the website or internet; the forms are available at the ministry.

DESTRUCTION

NDMA Chief Executive Officer Russell Dlamini said the whole purpose of the assessment was to collect data that will then feed to a report that will be compiled by the agency on the destruction caused by the protests in the country that turned violent.

When quizzed whether the assessment would be used in the

compensation process through the Reconstruction Programme announced by His Majesty King Mswati III at Sibaya last week Friday, Dlamini said this was just the first phase of assessing and evaluating the damage to property and life and the second phase, which includes the compensation, would follow thereafter.

The damage to property is estimated at E3 billion in the country and the King announced a Reconstruction Programme, which is E2.5 billion short as government has pledged E500 million, to help businesses mitigate the damage.