PERMANENT Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development Marsha Henry-Martin has given assurance that the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), despite changing heads several times over the past few years, is being steered by quality leadership going into the 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Long-standing Deputy Director General Richard Thompson has again taken on the role of acting head of the agency, after seasoned civil servant Leslie Harrow, who was appointed in November of last year, demitted office. Harrow was on secondment from the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ).

Last month, Harrow said the decision to return to the EOJ at the end of his six-month secondment in April had nothing to do with interference from Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie or any displeasure with the agency.

Questions about the frequent change of directors general of the critical state entity were yesterday raised by St Catherine South Member of Parliament Fitz Jackson at a meeting of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), with officials of ODPEM and its parent ministry. “The ODPEM is a dynamic organisation, and the leadership of the ODPEM remains at a high quality. The director general who chose to revert to his substantive post was well within his right to do so. That director general would have been engaged after a robust period of recruitment and selection and indicated that he would have preferred to take up the position on a secondment basis, and at the end of it he indicated that he had a preference to return [to his post],” Henry-Martin told the committee.She pointed out that secondments are not out of the ordinary in the public sector. “I don’t know the basis on which, in this case, the officer would have decided… That is totally within his prerogative. That was a clear process, there was no fuzziness about it,” she stressed.

The permanent secretary noted that the succession plan within the system allowed deputy directors general to fill the post, until another recruitment process is undertaken. She emphasised that deputies usually have the sound technical background needed to lead the agency. “The entity continuously carries out the objectives that are set out consistent with its mandate. The ODPEM’s leadership will remain vigilant in the upcoming hurricane season,” she stated.Jackson had asserted that over the last eight years the ODPEM had four directors general, which could be cause for concern given the nature of the agency, and that Harrow’s departure seemed “overnight”.“On the surface of it, it seems like a very rapid turnover rate, especially for an agency like yours which is so critical to life in the country one would expect that there is much stability in leadership,” he said.

Meanwhile, the acting director general told the committee that the ODPEM has identified about 85 per cent of the shelter needs for this hurricane season, taking into consideration the COVID-19 physical distancing and isolation requirements.“Normally you would probably use one room in a school, now you would have to expand that to use probably the entire school,” he remarked. The ODPEM says about twice the amount of space would be needed to shelter a projected 124,000 persons.However, the ODPEM has not yet fully identified funding for implements, such as temperature guns, sanitisers, and mattresses. Thompson said this was a matter of resource repositioning and budget reallocation, noting that some donations have already been secured.The agency has already received donations of essential medical devices and supplies totalling US$1.8 million from the World Health Organization (WHO) through the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency.

“We are relatively comfortable in terms of where we are now in terms of the supplies that we have acquired and will be acquiring going forward,” Thompson said.

The agency’s allocation from the national budget for this year is just under $400 million.