Transcript
SIAOSI SOVALENI: What we are trying to do is build the resilience of Tonga and especially on providing more timely information and having early warning systems so we are looking at putting together our National Emergency Management Office and the Met Service in a new office. Basically to actually get them to work closer together, sharing information, providing information to the public, providing warnings. At the same time we want to upgrade our multi-hazard system actually bringing all the information into one place so they can actually have all the information more or less on their fingertips so they can provide better information again to the public and hopefully thereby saving lives or getting people to be better prepared.
KORO VAKA'UTA: You mentioned in your announcement that it would be something like 25 million US dollars over three years, that seems like large scale.
SS: That's right, it is a large sum of money but we believe in actually building our resilience and actually getting our preparedness up to a certain level, also upgrading our systems. That's including early warning systems, computer systems, data basing and so forth. As I mentioned earlier on, we are building a new office complex to actually house relevant stakeholders so they are close to each other and hopefully thereby having better information sharing and at the same time having a more overall view of what is happening in the country. This is not just government funding but also in partnership with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank and our other development partners like Japan. It is a more holistic approach whereby we work together with our partners to actually come up with a solution that can help build our resilience, build our capacity, raise awareness and get us a little bit more prepared for disasters.
KV: As you say, this is a big project, a big upgrade, what triggered this move?
SS: We have been facing a few disasters and we have assessed our capabilities and our capacity and we deem it necessary to target some of our funding to address this particular need.
KV: Multi-hazards early warning systems? Are we talking tsunamis, earthquakes, cyclones?
SS: Tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding, all of that. What we want to do is bring all of that into one place so that they can have all the information to make informed decisions.
KV: And is this in terms of more sirens built or maybe something used on the mobile system, is there any details yet on how this will work?
SS: We are actually getting information into one place and at the same time we are working with partners to put around more than 100 sirens around Tongatapu and the outer islands as part of our early warning system.
