Flood: States/LGAs should allocate 1% of budget for prevention — NiMet

Director-General, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Mansur Bako Matazu has urged the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development, States and Local Government authorities to allocate one percent of their annual budget for the prevention of flood disasters across the country.

Speaking Thursday in Abuja during a one day National Consultative Workshop on 2021 Flood Preparedness, Mitigation and Response in Nigeria, he said the allocation would help enhance the development and deployment of the early warning tools and their implications on socio-economic activities and disaster risk reduction across Nigeria.

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He lamented that even with very useful early warning tools issued annually and updated periodically by NiMet and the Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) to be used to minimize and avert flooding across the country, the right strategy to utilise the tools and achieve the objectives had not been found.

On his part, Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mustapha Habib Ahmed said that 2021 Annual Flood Outlook (AFO) had informed that 121 LGA in 27 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) fell within the highly probable risk areas, while 302 LGAs in the 36 states including the FCT were within the moderately probable flood risk area.