THE RAINS ARE HERE: STANDBY FOR THE SAME ISSUES ALL OVER AGAIN
It’s that time of the year again – rain, thunderstorm, flash floods and human suffering. This is now a familiar theme. We love the rain and we thank God that we get a lot of it while our brothers and sisters in other parts of our continent are facing drought. So let’s spare a thought for people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Chad for example.
We are here talking about rain because those showers of blessing that we enjoy with drinking water and agriculture have a flip side. What you will find below looks familiar to what you read in this column last year and the year before. That’s what it is – familiar, but we have to always put things on record for you, our great readers. Let’s go!
NDMA RESPONDING TO THE NEEDS OF THE SAME SITUATIONS
The National Disaster Management Agency will soon become the most busy government agency in this country as the rainy season progresses. All we can ask for now is for the government to provide them with the money and personnel they need to do their job. International bodies must also help because all the predictions show that we are in for a tough rainy season. NDMA has a lot of experience in such matters. We want to see that on display. We are not talking about workshops and seminars. We want to see boots on the ground in our communities.
SLUM DWELLERS IN FREETOWN
We will soon begin to hear the familiar cries from the slums around Freetown – from Kroo Bay to Moa Wharf. In this social media age, pictures of flooded out dwellings, damaged properties and real human misery will be shared around the world. We ask the same question year in, year out – why can’t our people move out of such dangerous places? Instead of losing lives and properties every year and calling for help, why can’t people just move out? We keep asking but all we get are answers that fail to move the needle in a positive direction.
1. We know that in the past, the authorities moved some dwellers to areas outside Freetown for their own safety. The story we got later is that some of them sold their new lands and returned to the slum telling the world how clever they were.
2. As with everything in this country, politics will take that over soon. Politicians will appear in those ruins and offer a few bags of rice and tarpaulin and grab pictures for social media portraying themselves as champions of the poor. The very people will turn their largely self-inflicted pain into an unimaginable political football. They play politicians off against each other. Sadly, the media are now part of the game.
3. Next, the NGOs will get in on the act. They are always looking for opportunities to write project proposals asking for funding. One of them told us years ago that instead of taking the people out of the slums, the slum should be taken out of the people. We asked them to make that position a topic for a University dissertation.
FLOODING IN FREETOWN WITH GARBAGE ON OUR STREETS
FCC contractors were seen on a few streets the other day, doing what they call FLOOD MITIGATION. In other words they want to clear up Freetown’s totally blocked drainage system so that rain water can flow freely when we get to July and August, the months in which we experience the heaviest rainfall. That’s a good effort but the fact that we saw them on only a few streets in a sporadic manner, tells us that we are still not in the clear. In other words we should expect flooding in Freetown in general with mounds of mostly plastic waste on our streets. The FCC has no choice now but to ramp up that effort with more money, vehicles and personnel.
The other day we called on the FCC to work with the central government to squeeze local soft drink companies and those selling water in plastic sachets to pay big money in support of this cleaning effort. Much of the waste on streets comes directly from them. Ordinary taxpayers like us should not be expected to clean after them while they smile all the way to the bank regularly.
The FCC has totally ignored this persistent call to the extent that we should be excused for beginning to entertain the belief that some people in government – local and central, have in hand in this plastic pollution we are talking about here.
OPEN SEASON FOR ARMED ROBBERY
Armed robbery is another feature of the rain season in Freetown in particular. During heavy rains people sleep early and help is not likely to come from neighbors. Marauding criminals with guns, machetes and other dangerous materials now use this as an opportunity to attack people in their homes, especially in new communities where, mostly young professionals have constructed homes. In many of these places, the police are either not around or are in small numbers and lightly armed to face those dangerous guys.
We pray against it but this year will be difficult because many hardcore criminals were set free in November 2023 from the central jail. Some of them returned quietly, some have since committed new crimes and are back in their familiar surroundings but many others are out in our communities waiting for the opportunity to strike.
We are waiting for the police to signal their preparedness to keep our communities safe by setting out their plans to tackle rainy season armed robberies. This is not a secret thing. We know they have partnership boards around but we are not sure about the effectiveness of some of those boards and indeed the sincerity of some of those board members. The police need them to provide intelligence based on their knowledge of the local terrain but some of their members play double roles. They must be quickly identified and neutralized.
Police emergency hotlines MUST work well. Advertising non-existent hotlines or those operated by incompetent people makes zero sense.
We want a very quiet rainy season this year and the people must make that possible.
Copyright © 2024 Politico (20/05/24)
