Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig, the Director-General of the Civil Defence Commission (CDC), yesterday submitted a National Oil Spill Contingency Plan to Prime Minister Mark Phillips.
The Department of Public Information (DPI) said Craig handed over the document during a simple handing over ceremony in the boardroom of the Office of the Prime Minister, at Colgrain House, Camp Street, Georgetown.
“This plan is very comprehensive, and it has a component where we incorporate an onshore oil spill scenario because of the fact that we will have large trucks traversing the country with large quantities of fuel and petroleum products and because of mining and other activities which require the storage of large quantities of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products,” Craig was quoted as saying by the DPI.
He noted that the plan, which will be made available via the organisation’s website, is as a result of broad consultations with several stakeholder groups and an extensive overview of best practices.
Meanwhile, Phillips said he was happy to receive the document and underscored the importance of planning for disaster management, while noting that disaster planning is linked to development planning.
“We live in a world where nobody likes to talk about disasters, nobody wants a disaster to happen, but the reality is that we have to plan for disasters… simply because disasters disrupt the developmental process of any country and therefore you have to plan for a disaster, so when you’re faced with a disaster you can quickly deal with the disaster, recover and continue the developmental process of the country,” he said.
