Giora Zaltz, the head of the Upper Galilee Regional Council, is coming out this evening (Tuesday) with harsh criticism for the lack of assessments he said for the earthquake. According to Saltz, “the severe earthquakes in Turkey reminded, for those who needed a reminder, how fragile our existence is here, in the heart of the Syrian-African divide. However, unfortunately, as in the case of security incidents on the northern border, there is almost no thinking about earthquakes as well , actual planning or preparation of the state”.
Saltz claims that there is no common thought process with the heads of the municipal authorities, who are supposed to be senior partners in thinking, planning and execution, regarding the needs, the priorities, and the separation between main and secondary. According to him, this process is required in light of their in-depth familiarity with the population and the territory they are entrusted with, which is dozens of times greater than that of the state. And so, we continue to prepare for past events instead of thinking in a given budget what is right to do.
“In this way, huge budgets are wasted on non-applicable plans, plans without real feasibility, those that do not correspond with the attribution scenarios that the state gives to the various events. For example, instead of investing billions in private security in communities where a large part of their residents will not stay in any case in a security incident, it is right to invest in the security of educational buildings , public buildings, dangerous factories, etc. The same goes for earthquakes, instead of investing here and now in advanced warning systems, they continue to talk about upgrading buildings, a very complex issue, not to mention impractical, in an economic test and a test of planning and execution.”
He further adds that “as long as the kingdom continues to ignore the heads of the authorities, who are, as you remember, the ones who manage the lives of the residents, both in routine and emergency, so we will continue to prepare for the events of the past instead of those that may befall us, and huge budgets of the state will continue to be wasted.”