27 August 2008
editorial
The rains are back but how prepared are we to handle what is likely to be another year of floods? When the floods hit the eastern region in the last quarter of 2007, more than 3.5 million people were left homeless with millions of shillings worth of agricultural products and infrastructure destroyed.
The government of Uganda, except for a few occasions, has a poor record on disaster preparedness and management. On Monday, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees Minister Prof Tarsis Kabwegyere announced the impending rains that are likely to cause floods, again mainly in eastern and northern Uganda.
While the new initiative is a step in the right direction, previous lessons have been lost on us. The case of Karamoja has been in our midst since mid last year even before the floods that ravaged most of Karamoja and Teso regions.
The government did not plan for possible hunger after the floods until two months ago when over 15 people died in Karamoja. And the government remains ill prepared for any disastrous eventuality. This is clearly a case of poor planning and preferring to live hand-to-mouth.
To exclaim that the government is already feeding 80 per cent of those affected by hunger in Karamoja and expect anyone to "commend" the government for that is to seek cheap prizes.
That in itself is a measure of failure! How and why was it allowed to happen in the first place?
The Shs6 billion that the government is waving before the desperate population of 3.5 million people faced with renewed fear of floods is just too, little too late. How much food can be procured with that money with only a month left before the rains come flooding?
When the floods hit eastern Uganda last year that plan should have been put into place and silos filled with emergency supplies including food. However, the announcement for relief has only come after President Yoweri Museveni toured the region for political reasons, almost 10 months after the disaster that also left the Awoja bridge in a weaker state. No substantial repairs have been done on the bridge to strengthen its structure and if the floods hit again we could as well forget about it.
With this kind of preparedness, one would only hope that the meteorological department is wrong on its forecast. Uganda needs more sustainable long-term structures for disaster preparedness and management than the piece-meal measures that only come when lives have been lost and property destroyed.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
