It’s wrong for the country at one time to be losing such huge amounts of water while at the same time is unable to provide safe drinking and cooking water to its citizens in addition to blaming low water levels for the high electricity bills or blackouts.
It’s unfortunate that Kenyans continue loosing property and lives because of floods yet there are lessons to be learnt from Budalangi which for years now has been spared floods.
The Meteorological Department started sounding an alert that some parts of the country would get more than normal rainfall or experience some unusual weather conditions early this year. For several years, year in and year out, whenever there is rain, the country goes through the ravages of floods- which if well managed could be a major player in the Big Four agenda- food security.
It’s wrong for the country at one time to be losing such huge amounts of water while at the same time is unable to provide safe drinking and cooking water to its citizens in addition to blaming low water levels for the high electricity bills or blackouts.
It’s unfortunate that Kenyans continue loosing property and lives because of floods yet there are lessons to be learnt from Budalangi which for years now has been spared floods. What can other parts of the country learn? What happened to the rain water harvesting technologies, and have companies such as Kenya Power lost innovativeness?
The country has been working and created a disaster preparedness plan as a result of the 1997 El Niño condition, which has involved both the national and county governments in developing mitigation plans to deal with the anticipated unusual weather conditions. With an elaborate Disaster Risk Reduction Legal, Institutional and Co-ordination Framework in the country, why are floods and other disasters still ravaging Kenyans? Why are there no co-ordination mechanisms between the various levels of government and support groups at this time.
Makueni governor Kivutha Kibwana has already responded by establishing disaster units, in his county. Kilifi governor Amason Kingi was quoted complaining of lack of national support to deal with the flood situation in the county. Other than the Kenya Red Cross, which recently sent out an appeal for help, who else is doing what?
The structure and framework of disaster management bodies in Kenya indicates that the country has made disaster risk reduction a national and local priority with strong institutional framework through citing various legal and policy documents like the Constitution, Acts of Parliament, legislation and presidential decrees and gazette.
Consequently, a number of institutions were created: Ministry of State for Special Programmes (Now a directorate under the Ministry of Devolution and Planning), the National Disaster Operation Centre (NDOC) under Ministry of Interior and Co-ordination of National Government, National Disaster Management Unit (NDMU) , National Police Service inder Interior, National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) under Ministry of Devolution and Planning and the appointment of Disaster Risk Reduction focal points in all the line ministries by Chief Of Staff and Head of Public Service.
What are these bodies doing and are they well resourced to deal with the situation? Is it infighting and protection of turf by the agencies tasked with leading the country’s disaster preparedness war that is costing us this much? What happened to the implementation plan rolled out by the NDOC and the task force set up by the government?
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
