Newly constituted National Oversight Disaster Management Council (NODMC) rejected the preliminary Damage and Need Assessment Report (DNA) on account of figures which glaringly differ with estimates provided by the provinces.
Sources disclosed that NODMC recommended that Planning Commission, provinces, Asian Development Bank and World Bank must reconcile the damage data again to remove discrepancies before evolving any future strategy for the flood-hit people.
Meanwhile, federal government issued guidelines to NODMC under which any policy decision, plans and projects related to reconstruction/rehabilitation of flood stricken areas will be subject to prior approval of Oversight Council before sending for final approval to Council of Common Interest (CCI).
Sources further disclosed that the jurisdiction of the council is limited to ensure transparency in inflow of funds from any source to government only and have no mandate to question the direct inflow of funds to any of the NGOs.
The Council has been restricted by the federal government not to play any role in monitoring and have oversight on the source of funds to NGO but it will only focus on devising mechanism for monitoring and oversight of funds directed towards the government.
The council made some observations in its last meeting; the council observed that errors committed by the provinces in notifying the flood affected areas should be rectified immediately by all concerned departments. The council expressed the reservations over instances where many Afghan nationals living in Balochistan have been issued CNICs by Nadra.
In a directive, council says that Balochistan Government needs to expedite notification of the affected areas, besides providing lists of people who are eligible for Watan cards to be issued by Nadra. Council also feels that Balochistan must be given special attention as large number of peoples are without CNICs. Not only Balochistan but Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan and AJK under varying pretexts are seriously lagging behind from the provinces. Fata secretariat has been asked to provide data immediately with regard to damages caused by flood.