Editorial: Heed the weatherman’s warning on El Nino rains

Just as many Kenyans are suffering the consequences of persistent dry weather conditions in most parts of the country, the weatherman is warning of looming torrential rains associated with the El Nino weather phenomenon.

That beginning late next month, large sections of eastern and western Kenya will receive higher than normal rains, promising a complete reversal of the current situation that has left millions starving and imposed water and power rationing on the country.

It is not surprising that for many Kenyans, trapped in the current hardships of drought and starvation torrential rains promise to be the answer to the country’s problems.

It cannot be denied that heavy rains will bring to an abrupt close the ongoing costly rationing of power and water besides bringing down the cost of key food staples such as vegetables that have been driving up headline inflation in recent months.

But such gains should not blind anyone, especially policy makers, to the destruction that will come with El Nino rains. One only needs to look back at the damage that such torrential rains left the country in the last time they hit Kenya in the late 1990s.

Thousands of Kenyans lost property in ensuing floods in unexpected places such the usually dry Garissa and Tana River districts besides the usually vulnerable places such as Busia District’s Budalangi and Kano Plains on the shores of Lake Victoria.

Kenya also suffered massive infrastructure destruction after the rains swept away large sections of bitumen and loose surface roads rendering many parts of the country inaccessible.

And just as drought is forcing Treasury to reorganize its budget to find the billions of shillings it needs for the massive relief operation, the El Nino rains of the 1990s left millions of Kenyans in camps for the internally displaced and in need of relief assistance.

It did not help that the rains left in its wake severe attacks of rare water-borne and infectious diseases such as cholera, malaria and rift valley fever that nearly wiped out livestock in some parts of the country and heralded a massive medical relief operation to save millions from the jaws of death.

Ultimately, the combination of this destruction and the prevailing political environment pulled the economy into its lowest ebb since independence culminating into a contraction in 1999.

To recover from the El Nino crisis, Kenya had to spend billions of shillings, a large part of which was money borrowed from the World Bank and other bilateral lenders that the country is still servicing to date.

It can only therefore make sense that individual Kenyans, relevant agencies and the government all take the weatherman’s warning seriously and put in place measures that will help cushion the economy from adverse effects of this rare weather phenomenon.

No one should say two or three months later that they were not warned.