Editorial | Can ODPEM chew gum, too?

Richard Thompson seems to misapprehend a critical part of his job, especially how Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) should balance its obligations during crises.

The ODPEM executive director seems to believe that in these circumstances, the primary responsibility for providing information and assuring the public belongs to the political leadership, rather than the agency and its technical staff. So, ODPEM’s perceived role is to feed information to politicians, who then pass it on to the public.

This newspaper, of course, disagrees with that approach, which has brought public scrutiny of ODPEM’s operating procedure for the second time in seven years. The agency can, and should, do both. Which does not preclude the head of the government and others in political leadership from also providing disaster response information and other assurances to the public.

This issue has arisen again in the face of how ODPEM responded to the October 30 magnitude 5.6 earthquake, which was Jamaica’s strongest quake in three decades. Fortuitously, the earthquake caused relatively little damage and no reported injuries or death.

SIX HOURS

It was six hours from the time the quake struck, just before 11 o’clock in the morning, causing major panic across the island, when Jamaicans first heard directly from ODPEM.

Yet, within minutes of the shake Prime Minister Andrew Holness, flanked by his Cabinet – which normally meets on Mondays – appeared on social media platforms, assuaging Jamaicans and assuring them of his government’s readiness to manage disasters – natural and otherwise. Mr Holness offered as evidence of these skills his administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nothing is wrong with Mr Holness doing this in his capacity as leader of the country and as chairman of the National Disaster Risk Management Council, of which ODPEM is a member. We nonetheless found it profoundly disconcerting that ODPEM’s, and Mr Thompson’s, first public appearance was so late in the day, at a press conference that was addressed by other government officials and ministers.

It was not that ODPEM was missing in action, Mr Thompson subsequently explained. The agency and its technocrats were busy doing other important things.

He told The Gleaner: “You have to follow a protocol. You are in the middle of a response, so you are generating information, pulling down information, and you have to brief and update your respective portfolio ministers, and that goes up to the prime minister.

“It should not be a situation where you speak to media and then to your portfolio minister, or that the head of the country is hearing that information in the news without you having spoken to them on the matter.”

We are all for observing protocols. But we are also in favour of being adept at walking and chewing gum at the same time. Which is a skill that we expect Mr Thompson to have mastered.

SINGLE LARGE QUESTION

There are a number of observations – encapsulated in a single large question – to be made about that six-hour hiatus, during which frightened Jamaicans were starved of hard information from its premier disaster response agency: what is ODPEM and what are its responsibilities?

As we understand it, the agency’s role is to coordinate Jamaica’s preparation for, and responses to, critical emergencies, including national disaster, such as the one upon whose cusp we teetered on October 30. It is within that office, an independent body, that resides, or ought to reside, most of the government’s technical expertise for disaster response. It is where Jamaicans look, and expect to find, authoritative voices when disasters happen or threaten.

There is an important reason why Mr Thompson should take this fact seriously, even as he follows protocols: the low levels of trust Jamaicans have in politicians and political leadership and many institutions of the State. This trust deficit is exacerbated by a deep partisan divide. So, information from political leaders is often filtered through, and coloured by, partisan lenses.

ODPEM is one of the agencies that has been able to transcend these constricting partisan perceptions. Which it must maintain, and build on, by asserting its authority and independence, while providing appropriate space for the country’s leaders, who, in periods of crises, as they do good, also wish to project themselves as the beacons and hands of stability. The danger sometimes is that they peddle less-than-useful information.

In 2016, on the eve of Hurricane Matthew, which seemed destined to slam into Jamaica – its eye eventually passed just east of the island – the local government minister, Desmond McKenzie (he is the portfolio minister for ODPEM), was accused of hogging advisory events about the storm. The then ODPEM executive director, Major Clive Davis, appeared to be sidelined – a fact upon which a former ODPEM head and disaster management expert, Barbara Carby, publicly commented.

“If a press conference is called by the agency leading the preparedness efforts, it seems to me that the disaster management professionals should be allowed to provide operational and scientific information ...,” Dr Carby said.

We would say the same thing about earthquakes and of post-disaster briefings. And of the need for timely interventions.

We expect that the country’s leaders should have platforms, above the partisan fray, from which to rally the country. But as Dr Carby said, operational and scientific information we expect from trusted scientific and technical experts.