President William Ruto must convene an emergency meeting with his cabinet and draw solutions that will stop more deaths or put on him the blood of innocent Kenyans whose lives have been lost.
The Red Cross Society has reported close to 80 deaths and thousands of displacement caused by the ravaging floods from the El Nino phenomenon that began in October 2023. The rains are expected to go up to January 2024, according to Dr. David Gakindu of the Kenya Meteorological department, causing jitters on how many more could loss their lives from the rains in the four months of downpour.
In the forecast released in September, Gakindu stated that most parts of the country could experience above average rainfall of up to 100mm. As humanitarian organizations rein in to salvage the situation in the northern part of the country where the hapless residents are scampering for safety while sending distress calls to the government, it is still vague what the mitigation measures would be.
Loudest is Mombasa governor Abdulswomad Shariff Nassir, whose county residents in Bamburi, Kisauni and Mariakani were ravaged by flash floods, with no money to provide food and health essentials to the helpless. Two weeks later, his senator Mohammed Faki has not filed any motion to summon Treasury cabinet Secretary to explain the delays of the disbursement
In its oversight role, the senate seems to have completely forgotten what it should do which is to ensure that counties were getting sufficient allocation of the financial resources in liaison with the county assembly who understands the depth of the devastation brought about by the floods. However the senators have been mum despite their county bosses decrying delays in disbursement of both the county equitable share and the contingency fund.
A month after the met department issued its forecast, the government has not put its house in order for the millions of Kenyans who cannot cross over towns due to cut off roads and those sleeping hungry because they have no roof to assemble their household goods. Lately, the deputy president and the council of governors have been caught up in a drum beating competition but apparently on different tunes each side trying to pull a crowd.
The warning by the met department was a local backup from the ones issued by the World Health Organization who not only cautioned against diseases but also told the government to step up measures on the same but as it stands, the ears are deaf. However, the head of state downscaled the alert despite a 10 billion shillings allocation, with reasons that the met department said did not come from them.
While speaking to reporters, the director said he did not advise the president on the downscale and he cannot ascertain where he got the information. As the met department is still issuing updates on the forecast, it is worth noting that counties will not perform any mitigation measures because the national government has not disbursed any funds to the devolved units.
In a press statement on Tuesday, Chairperson on the Council of governors Anne Waiguru toned down remarks by the DP Rigathi Gachagua who announced that the treasury has injected 2.4 Billion shillings for the same.
The National Disaster Management Authority, a department in the Interior and National administration ministry, has been operating on walking dead mode, cash strapped and heavily under-resourced despite being funded by taxpayers who are among those reeling from the disaster
The authority that sits in the Interior and National Administration ministry whose CS is still looking for bandits who are also hapless due to the floods, cannot rescue any harm that will caused by the trickles and as it looks, the way is still spilled and we can only prepare more graves.
While 80 Kenyans including two KRA officials will never wake up to tell us what the government should do to avert the death of more, It is worth noting that the head of state has not made any statement regarding the rains. Instead he flew out of the country leaving DP at loggerheads with the governors
The president must convene an emergency meeting with his cabinet and delegate duties appropriately. Those dying are our brothers and sisters.