Disaster management: CDM partners with Santam
One of the country’s insurance giants has partnered with the Capricorn District Municipality to provide critical disaster management resources and training.
As part of its ongoing Partnerships for Risk and Resilience (P4RR) initiative, Santam handed over firefighting equipment, firefighting and disaster management training, and personnel protective clothing, worth R840 000 to CDM.
The senior manager for stakeholder relations at Santam, Simon Morilly, said: “In each municipality, we assess the unique risks and requirements. With the Capricorn Municipality, our focus is on fire, given the ongoing dry conditions in the area and correlating increased fire risk. Over the next three years, we will work with the Capricorn District Municipality to capacitate firefighting and disaster management teams through intensive training and disaster risk mitigation efforts, in addition to our resource donations.”
CDM Mayor, Mamedupi Teffo, expressed appreciation to Santam for the partnership, saying the collective ctive work that will be put in to eradicate the he risks that comes with these fires will go o a long way in ensuring the municipality remains mains sustainable.
“The partnership ip will be able to build on the lessons essons and experience of the e municipality and Santam. In a bid to ensure accountability a steering committee will be established to account for the e vision of the partnership and to be able to answer any hard questions in council meetings.
“One of the core functions of the municipality is disaster management and this partnership will give us the strength and capacity to be able to deal and be combat ready for any disaster.
“We want to be able to prevent and mitigate at the same time. Disasters affect the livelihood of our people and have a social impact on the poor elderly and other vulnerable groups. It causes devastation and displacement.”
The partnership was officiated by an official signing ceremony and part of the equipment was handed over to CDM.
In each municipality, we assess the unique risks and requirements. With CDM, our focus is on fire.