In view of the weekend’s devastating forest fire in Cyprus, establishing a deputy ministry of citizens’ protection in Cyprus is a must, former head of the island’s Fire Service Marcos Trangolas told Philenews.
The highly-respected retired supervisor also said this is the only way for misunderstandings and lack of cooperation between various services to be avoided. So that catastrophic consequences are also prevented.
Trangolas also said the deputy ministry should operate according to standards of other EU countries. Its mission should be the proper way of confronting all kinds of natural disasters.
“It should be a single body with the exclusive responsibility of protecting the citizen. All services under its jurisdiction should be jointly planning, coordinating and activating action towards prevention and response to natural disasters,” he added.
The Ministries of Agriculture, Justice, Interior and Defense are now all involved in operations confronting a natural disaster.
All this would come under the jurisdiction of the deputy ministry of citizens’ protection and it could be the solution to the inefficiency and slow process of coordination recorded today, he also said.
