FROM THE MEDIA

The Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia (BPK) audits the performance of the Indonesian Geological Agency. The results show that there are a number of things that the Agency must evaluate in the context of disaster mitigation.

Board Member IV of BPK RI, Rizal Djalil, said that the performance audit of Geological Agency was carried out to reduce the number of losses and casualties caused by disaster. This is because the disaster mitigation system that is currently in place has not been optimal.

"The government is still focusing their efforts on disaster response rather than disaster prevention so that the Geological Agency is yet to have optimum performance in disaster mitigation," Rizal said in a national seminar entitled "The Role of Geological Data in Disaster Mitigation" held at Aula Barat ITB, Jalan Ganesha, Bandung on Monday (7/24/2017).

He explained that the Geological Agency’s map on disaster vulnerability has not been optimally utilized by local governments that are potentially affected by disaster. Therefore, he continued, in the event of disaster, the state would still suffer from significant losses and the number of casualties would be high.

"The prevention aspect in using disaster mitigation data should be improved, because some areas do not have adequate early warning system yet," he said.

"All local governments that are potentially affected by disaster should also play a more active role in their coordination with the Geological Agency," Rizal added.

He believed that the Geological Agency should also increase the number of human resources and technology to closely observe any potential geological disaster. The existing human resources and technology are considered to be less than ideal when compared with disaster vulnerability in Indonesia.

He pointed out that of the 127 active volcanoes in Indonesia, only 69 were closely monitored under specific observations and equipment. In addition, monitoring equipment installed in those volcanoes is largely not up to standard.

"The Geological Agency has not met the IAVCE standardization for equipment that must be set up at the monitoring posts. This means that there are risks that the quality of monitoring results from those posts would vary considerably," Rizal said.

Head of Geological Agency, Ego Syahrial, admitted that the Agency is yet to have the technology that is ideal to support disaster mitigation. So, he continued, the results of this audit will inform the Agency’s internal evaluation to allow them to make future improvements.

"The equipment is far from ideal. We will evaluate this, both in terms of technology and human resources," he said.

He mentioned that the Agency has created disaster vulnerability maps for potentially affected areas. In fact, the Agency’s latest electronic application allows the public to access the most recent disaster-related data through mobile phones.

"We hope that the local governments would use the disaster map that we have created as their reference. The public can also have access to it through app," Ego said.

news.detik.com (Senin, 24 Juli 2017)