DIRECTOR General of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) Ronald Jackson, has urged local businesses to stop treating risk management and emergency response as a “discretionary item”.

Jackson said with the multiplicity of disasters and emergency situation affecting many countries — like the recent civil unrest in Tivoli — it is critical for business owners to start taking the approach seriously.

A three-day stand-off between police and gunmen in Tivoli Gardens two weeks ago resulted in a virtual lock down of the business community.

“Gone are the days when companies of whatever size could afford to treat risk mitigation and emergency response as a discretionary item,” Jackson said, speaking at a Disaster Recovery and Business continuity seminar hosted by the ODPEM in partnership with Digicel Business Continuity.

The seminar was held at Terra Nova Hotel yesterday under the theme ‘Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: What every business needs to know’.

“It’s not just about hurricanes and floods like we’ve conventionally occupied our minds with,” Jackson said.

Jackson said Jamaica also had the opportunity to learn from the experiences of other countries and apply the knowledge from those experiences to our own situation.

In this regard, he pointed to the January earthquake in Haiti where several businesses, through co-ordinated efforts and good planning, were able top pool together to make a difference. Jackson highlighted Digicel as one of those companies.

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