Flood victims at the FOPA village have received food from the national disaster management office (NDMO) on Sunday but were unsatisfied with what they get.
Speaking to this paper in an interview, chairman of the camp Charles Ketea said they were unhappy with the authority because they have distributed expired goods to them.
Mr Ketea said what NDMO is doing to them is like feeding animals.
“We are humans and we don’t expect the government to give us expired goods. We are here because the government fail to repatriate us in time. But due to the delay of our repatriation, we have to stay back,” Ketea said.
He said they expected the government to feed them with good food and not expired goods.
Adding, authorities should collect all the food packs and take it back with them.
It was discovered that noodles distributed to the victims have on them expiry dates of 27/06/2014.
The Solomon Star was present during the distribution of food on Sunday which sparks a lot of disagreement and roar between the people and NDMO officials.
Other victims were complaining why their food packs do not have canned tuna (taiyo) in them whilst others do.
Some victims released their anger to NDMO officials after discovering that somebody else has signed on their behalf and took away their food packs.
But NDMO chief operations officer said it was unfortunate that officers who have packed the goods did not even notice the expiry date on the noodle packs.
George Baragamu said the goods arrived and stored in the warehouse since early last month and officers thought they were okay.
Mr Baramagu said they apologise for the incident but advised the victims to get rid of the expired noodles and use the rest.
This paper is aware food distribution to the victims stopped on the 21st last month and the victims were expected to repatriate to their provinces.
However due to the slow process of procuring shelter kits and the slow government process to avail funds, it has left the victims without food for almost three weeks.
But Mr Baragamu said the victims should have already been repatriated but they have problems with suppliers of the shelter kits.
“At the first place, the government took materials on credit to the suppliers. But now the suppliers demand the government to pay half the amount. This has slowed everything. Other suppliers are okay but since they can’t supply the quantity we want, it continues to slow everything,” Baragamu said.
Adding, the government process of securing funds to purchase all these shelter kits is also an added problem which causes the delay.
“But we are hoping that by the end of the week, everything will be ready and people should be repatriated with their kits,” Baragamu added.
However he admitted that in trying to do all these work is very challenging and tough.
“It is even tougher when victims are not cooperating and being dishonest.
“We have tried our best to assist the people but it requires cooperation and understanding of people because the process in which things are done is not as what people expected,” he said.
However Mr Baragamu said despite the delay of all these, the government is still committed to assist the victims to repatriate.
By Daniel Namosuaia
