Oxfam accuses government of not doing enough to mitigate disasters 

By Stephen Kalema

Oxfam has accused the government of ‘having a lot of planned papers  on disaster preparedness’ but poor implementation.

Oxfam is an  confederation of 20 non governmental organisations.

While speaking at a symposium on financing disasters preparedness, mitigation and prevention in the country, Peter Wandera, said a lot of recommendations have been designed by the government but nothing has been put in practice to help the vulnerable society.

Mr Wandera is the Oxfam project manager on Empowering of local and national Humanitarian actor.

“For over two to three years, we have had three reports on financing disasters but nothing has been put in place to see, recommendations made are very clear but implementation is low,” Mr Wandera said at symposium organized by Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG) on Wednesday.

The Commissioner Disasters Preparedness from the Office of Prime Minister Martin Owor however, blamed lack of finances, saying implementation can never be a problem but financing the implementations is the major problem his team is now facing.
“It’s through our paperwork and study that we have managed to save people from land slides in Bududa. I can tell that through our paper work, we can now detect disasters,” said Owor.

“Ministry of Finance will say ‘we have contingency funds’ but after the occurrence of the disaster, funds are not seen.”

Awor said it’s through planning that disasters can be handled before they come to pass, but managing them after they surface it too expensive. “Disasters can never be managed, however, we can avoid them causing deaths this is through Hazard assessment profiling in all hazard prone areas”

Owor also blamed district local councils who have refused to allocate fund on disasters but rather every year they allocate roads.