Dodma needs K1.1bn for cyclone resettlement

Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) says it needs about K1.1 billion for the resettlement exercise of people affected by Tropical Cyclone Freddy which has devastated the Southern Region.

Dodma commissioner Charles Kalemba said this yesterday at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe when President Lazarus Chakwera donated K120 million to the department through the Presidential Charity Initiative to support cyclone survivors.

The funds were part of the K280 million raised during a Presidential Charity Golf Tournament held in October 2022.

Kalemba said there are currently 750 camps hosting over 143 000 households.

He said Dodma will start decommissioning some of the camps, an exercise that will require about K1.1 billion to give each household a package that can see them through the next four to six months.

Kalemba said: “The amount of loss is in the billions of kwacha and we will require a lot of resources to recover from the devastation and get people back to their locations.

“We plan to give them a package to see them through, which will include a small amount of money for rent as they re-establish themselves [for those in towns] and for those in other districts to build some temporary housing structures as they move towards recovery.”

According to Dodma, over 2.5 million people were affected by the cyclone with 676 confirmed deaths, 537 people missing, and 44 roads damaged while countless bridges, health infrastructure and crops were washed away.

Speaking when he presented the donation, President Chakwera called for the need to hold hands in bringing relief to all those affected by Cyclone Freddy, according to their immediate needs, while also continuing to prepare the national recovery and reconstruction plan.

He observed that it is not just people in the southern region anymore that have been affected, although that remains the epicenter of the devastation as there is also climate change devastation unfolding in Karonga.

“No matter where the climate change events are taking place, the urgent need of the hour is for all of us to work together in bringing relief to all of those affected according to their immediate needs, while we continue preparing our national recovery and reconstruction plan for rollout in the near future,” Chakwera said.

The President also acknowledged that it will take years to reconstruct what has been damaged, and that some of the losses the country has suffered may never be recovered.

On his part, Presidential Charity Initiative chairperson Vizenge Kumwenda observed that the funds that were raised at the Presidential Charity Golf were earmarked for the survivors of Cyclone Ana which hit the country in 2022 for whom K80 million was budgeted.

He added that the figure has since been raised to K120 million given Freddy’s devastation.

“The funds [the President] has donated will go a long way to alleviate the suffering of these families,” said Kumwenda, who is also Nico Holdings plc managing director.

He said the funds have been used to buy 6 250 blankets, four metric tonnes of maize flour, 535 50-kilogramme bags of beans and 1.4 metric tonnes of maize seed.