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ISLAMABAD: Chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, Lt-Gen (retd) Nadeem Ahmad, has resigned because of differences with the government over the working and mandate of the organisation. According to sources, Lt-Gen (retd) Ahmad, who earlier worked as the deputy chairman of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, sent his resignation to the prime minister after having failed to persuade the government to put Erra under the control of the NDMA.
When contacted, he said: “I will prefer not to comment on the development as things will get clear in a few days.” When pressed he said: “Yes, I am neither here nor there.”
The sources said the resignation had been received at the prime minister’s secretariat and now it was up to Mr Gilani to accept or reject it.
Since his retirement from the army and appointment as NDMA’s chairman last year, he wrote to the prime minister’s secretariat several times seeking the control of Erra.
He argued that with its limited scope of work, Erra would be strengthened if it was given under NDMA’s control.
But as an organisation Erra is a much larger than the NDMA.
When the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority Bill, 2010, adopted last month extended Erra’s mandate to the entire country, Lt-Gen (retd) Ahmad decided to call it quits, the sources said.
Erra was to complete its job by 2010 with the limited scope of undertaking reconstruction and rehabilitation work in the earthquake-affected areas. But the Erra Bill has given it a permanent status. Moreover, the source said, Erra was far from having completed its task. According to rough estimates, it has completed only 50 to 60 per cent reconstruction and rehabilitation work in the earthquake-hit areas of AJK and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Although they are under the control of the prime minister, the operational heads of both Erra and the NDMA are appointed in consultation with the General Headquarters (GHQ).
When the prime minister’s secretariat forwarded to Erra and the interior ministry’s National Crisis Management Cell a detailed letter written by the general to press his proposal for making the NDMA the focal point to deal with disasters and putting Erra under his control, the idea was opposed.
According to the sources, there was so much bickering over the matter that discussions were held at the highest level, resulting in the resignation.
Erra Chairman Hamid Yar Hiraj said he did not know anything about the resignation and that his organisation had nothing to do with the NDMA.
He said Erra had recently resumed work on a Saudi-funded project to build the King Abdullah university in Muzaffarabad.
