Give funds to grass-roots level officials to cope with disasters.

Editorial Cartoon.

Disasters, by their nature, are occurrences that may strike anywhere and at any time. Tanzania has had its share of disasters that have hit various parts of the country.

 

Close to memory have been five people from the same family who lost their lives on the spot in Manungu Village, Kahama, Shinyanga Region, last month. The disaster followed torrential rains that were accompanied by lightning. 

 

But this is just one of several others that have once in a while occurred in the country. They include disasters caused by famine and floods, normally dealt with by the Prime Minister’s Office all the way in Dar es Salaam or Dodoma.

 

However, given the vastness of this country and its poor communication infrastructure, sometimes it has been difficult to deal with such disasters as fast as required.

 

And, as if this was not bad enough, the government red-tape makes the whole process of helping disaster victims as quickly as possible all the more complex. 

 

As a result more victims of disaster than necessary may lose their lives because of late or, worse still, absence of assistance delivered in time.

 

This may be part of the reasons for the government to contemplate the introduction of disaster risk management at district and ward levels.

 

The plan was unveiled by the Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, Regina Kikuli, at a workshop held on Monday in Dar es Salaam.

 

She said the management of disasters requires well established community based early warning systems. The catch words here are the latter five in the sentence, i.e community based early warning systems.

 

The reason is that hitherto the government agency dealing with disasters has been based in the Prime Minister’s Office. And although it works from Dodoma, there were bound to be some difficulties in dealing with disasters occurring in remote areas.

 

Decentralising its obligation to the wards and villages would, indeed, be placing the responsibility where it belongs. For the ward and village executive officers are the first officials supposed to know how many victims of disasters live in their areas.

 

But, for the plan to be effective, these officials should be allocated enough budgets for any emergency that may occur in their areas. 

 

This is important, because without funds for emergencies the grassroots level officials would be like toothless bulldogs.

 

The idea is to make them have the wherewithal to respond urgently to emergencies occurring in their areas of jurisdiction. 

 

This would solve the problem of red-tape in accessing funds for emergencies. We understand that there could be a problem in entrusting money to officials who may have little knowledge on book keeping and accounts.

 

However, to circumvent this problem the funds could be kept in district offices which we believe have competent accountants. In case of an emergency then the village officials could rush to district headquarters and get funds.  

 

All said, we think that the government idea of dealing with disasters should go ahead as planned as it would hasten the process.