Misguided policies cause of tragedies

Story by ALAN NGUGI
Publication Date: 7/30/2007

NAIROBI CITY FATHERS HAVE been doing a great job beautifying parts of the city, planting trees and carrying out many other worthy activities

But on the flip side, they have exhibited some of their most awful deficiencies, among them a dearth of long-term plans or policies, failure to implement the few that they do have, gross incompetence in whatever they do, and lethargy.

What comes immediately to mind is one of the almost useless Fire Brigades anywhere. While one can count their engines on the fingers of one hand, they usually arrive at the scene when the worst has happened.

This happens even within the CBD. Their lamest excuse is lack of water, but the truth is that clueless officials have no idea where the ancient fire hydrants are, and most likely, these hydrants anyway.

Even then, for a city of three and a half million souls, why would something like a full-fledged fire brigade be an issue 44 years after independence?.

One would have thought this would be a top policy priority in a city replete with industries, offices, businesses and extensive residential areas!

The recent spectacle in Kawangware where a fire razed a school only for the fire-fighters to arrive late — they were pelted with rocks by irate residents — ought to have been sobering. But these ‘‘City Fathers’’ are too busy enforcing a ban on smoking in the streets , and one wonders whether cigarettes are greater tragedies than potential and actual fires destroying billions of shillings worth of property.

This state of affairs is replicated all over. Barely a day after the Nation exposed Nakuru’s non-existent fire brigade, a monumental fire razed a whole shopping mall just half a kilometre away from the town’s station.

The Nakuru town officials were also quite busy enforcing their trailblazing smoking ban. Just what sort of priorities guides these councils?

WHAT’S THE POINT OF ‘‘BEAUTIFYing’’ streets and roads when a fire can destroy entire buildings in minutes?

Other episodes of ineptitude have been all too visible. The recent tremors are a good example. What would have been the result if any of the earthquakes had hit 7.5 on the Richter scale?

Crumbling buildings built deficiently because of the rank corruption at City Hall and other councils would have seen possibly thousands of people killed.

Since there are no rescue facilities to speak of, no emergency ambulances, no fire-fighting equipment or other disaster-prevention measures, this would have been yet another national tragedy.

Yet another of these haphazard decrees is quite visible in the Globe Roundabout matatu stage and in the hastily-constructed hawkers market nearby.

The matatu stage is an exercise in impossible chaos. When someone woke up one day and thought matatus were clogging the streets, they dumped most of them in an area where only the dexterity of the drivers allows them to manoeuvre their vehicles.

There are no route slots, no exit points and the deafening din coming out from the place pollutes Nairobi more than all its smokers combined.

Talking of the smoking bans, one is led to beg the question whether NCC has ever considered anything about the extremely toxic fumes spewed daily out its Dandora dumping site.

Has the council ever thought about the health effects this has on the residents of the massive Dandora or the adjoining, Korogocho and Kariobangi estates?

Maybe one of the priorities the Government itself should now undertake is either revamping these councils or disbanding them. They serve absolutely no purpose in their current disposition; indeed they are gross irritants to their residents.