Government has supplied a total of 35 motorbikes to district and zonal offices of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) in Volta and Oti Regions.

The bikes are to enable officials of the organization to discharge their duties effectively by responding quickly and timely to issues of disaster.

Dr Archibald Yao Letsa, the Volta Regional Minister, in handing over the bikes to the Districts Directors of the Organization, said government was committed to retooling NADMO, so it could deal more effectively with issues of disaster in the country.

He said, “this is just the beginning of retooling the Organization” as government was working assiduously to equip NADMO with more logistics to continue to undertake activities that would prevent and manage disaster as well as mitigate its impact in the country.

The Minister called on the citizenry to support the Organization in its quest to achieve disaster-free society for accelerated socio-economic development.

He implored the various Directors to ensure that the bikes were used for their intended purposes, not for their personal gains, and also properly maintained.

Mr Divine Bosson, Volta Regional Director of NADMO, was grateful to government for the gesture, saying the bikes would go long way to enable the Organization to deliver effectively on its core mandate to the state.

He said the Organization was putting all the necessary pragmatic measures in place to ensure that its quest for effective disaster risk reduction in the Regions was achieved.

Mr Bosson said NADMO’s approach to disaster had change as it was now focusing more on identifying factors that lead to disaster and working unremittingly to deal with those factors to forestall disaster, than distributing relief items to victims of disaster after it occurred.

He urged all the Districts and Zonal officers to put comprehensive disaster prevention and management mechanisms in place to ensure that Volta and Oti were disaster resilient.

The Regional Director also urged the officers to continue to sensitize the public on the need to avoid activities that could lead to disasters and also called on the citizenry to collaborate with the Organization, saying "disaster prevention is a shared responsibility."