City floods show we need more than just firefighting measures

The Shell petrol station on Lang'ata Road near T-Mall after flooding on May 13, 2015. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE |

What you need to know:

  • The collective hypocrisy of our county government was laid bare to the thread.
  • There can never be any excuse that small functions as maintaining drainage systems cannot be done by the county government.

One of the most tragic lessons in history is the failure to learn from history itself.

This week, we witnessed in utter disbelief, as the same problems which afflicted the city in its formative years, return to haunt us in our modern era.

Our beautiful Nairobi was turned into a swamp overnight as mother-nature opened her bellies to pour out torrents of rainfall.

In a moment of fury, houses were flooded, cars washed away, children marooned, people drowned and walls felled.

The pictures that went viral looked like pictures from horror movies yet it was real and happening in our own city.

Our successive years of neglect of our drainage system, chaotic city planning, our near-laughable disaster preparedness as a city and corruption mocked at our helplessness as nature poured its anger on us.

The world watched by as tourists got marooned in the city in the sun whose country is firing on all cylinders to revive a tourism industry worsened by insecurity, and now, nature’s wrath. It surely doesn’t rain. It pours.

The collective hypocrisy of our county government was laid bare to the thread; silence at first and all talk and no action later, a knee-jerk reaction at best. The vacuum presented a perfect opportunity for opportunists to take over and shine.

An emergency kitty was hurriedly crafted to assist in unblocking the drainage system never mind the national government had already lent its help through the National Youth Service (NYS) to do similar work.

The people of Nairobi have witnessed as rates and fees charged by county government increase and quality of services deteriorate at the same time. At some point in time they will not take it anymore as incompetence, inaction and incapacity is loaded onto them.

Nairobi County is double lucky in the sense that it receives one of the highest county budget allocations. It is also the seat of the national government and the most visible county.

A lot of its county functions are catered for, somehow, by the national government.

There can never be any excuse therefore, that small functions as maintaining drainage systems, unblocking sewers cannot be done by the county government.

The writer isthe Dagoretti South MP