Accra, May 18, GNA - Mr. Cletus Avorka, Minister for Interior, announced that government would improve conditions of service, including salary increase for workers of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO).

He said details of the package were being worked on and the conditions would be rolled out when work on them was finished. Mr. Avorka disclosed these when he paid a working visit to the NADMO Headquarters in Accra on Monday, to acquaint himself with challenges facing the staff.

He said government's effort was to ensure that conditions of service for NADMO staff were commensurate with the work they were doing to motivate them to work harder to avert disasters. Mr. Avorka said apart from salary increment, resources and logistics needed to manage or prevent disasters would be made available for NADMO to enhance its disaster prevention. He said operations of NADMO were crucial to the country's development and government was confident that with the right incentives, the organisation could work effectively. He said Ghana was vulnerable to floods, earthquakes, bushfires, climate change among others and the country's survival depended on the adaptation of appropriate strategies to prevent such disasters. Mr. Avorka urged the NADMO to give early warning signs to enable people prepare adequately for disasters to save lives and property when they occurred.

He commended the Organization for embarking on educational drive through media programmes adding "disaster management cannot be undertaken when there is no teamwork and discipline". Mr. Kofi Portuphy, National Coordinator of NADMO announced that a West African Disaster Management Institute, which would use satellite to pick signals from space on weather patterns would be built in Ghana to serve the entire sub-region.

Mr. Portuphy said NADMO had identified several flood prone areas in the country and was educating residents of the affected areas on safety measures to adopt to avert its devastating effects when it struck. He assured that NADMO had equipment and materials on hand to be able to avert any form of disasters in the country.