OPED: Why should we lose lives to floods and mudslides?

I am saddened that we continue to lose lives during rainy days in Kampala and Uganda at large. For Kampala, we have been always taught that it is made up of 7 hills which therefore suggests many valleys as well. The City has planners and so are the districts, municipalities and town councils.

What kind of planning do they do? I see culverts being re-installed during the rainy seasons and trenches, water channels being cleaned up after the rain! Why isn’t this done before the rains?

Why must the works on drainage happen during the floods? Isn’t this poor planning?

I am sure the planners know very well the topography of their areas and thus they understand well the mitigation measures to aver flooding and other related issues.Why should we lose lives to floods? Why should roads disappear instead of water after it rains?

It is unfortunate that we are taking matters lightly- we have a whole ministry for Disaster preparedness, one wonders whether they actually prepare for disasters or merely respond to it! Why should we continue losing lives over mudslides when we have the Uganda Meteorological Authority, National Environment Management Authority, Ministry for Environment, UNRA among other agencies? These agencies need to harmonise their strategies because you cannot fix a broken bridges during the rains, this has to be done much earlier before the rains!

I think we need to create a disaster commission to deal with all these issues and disband the Ministry! The Commission will go a long way in dealing with human activities that lead to the disasters, full preparation and planning prior to the disasters and public participation of the same. We need technocrats to handle such situations and not merely politicians who only fly to the disaster areas when disaster strikes to make statements.

We need to be serious and we shall save lives! The citizens too need to take preservation of the environment seriously by planting trees, practising good farming practices and engaging in climate change mitigation activities and the Ministry for Water and Environment should take lead in massive sensitisation on climate change mitigation! Let us plant more trees, let us plan for our roads better, let us stop building in swamps and collectively we shall win!