At about 3 a.m. yesterday, a fire gutted the Park Yard Market in Kampala, burning to ash the merchandise of more than 25,000 vendors. Most of the vendors are women with no alternative source of income. They have no insurance and there will be no compensation for their loss. No one was killed in the fire, but that was just a stroke of luck. Had the fire broken out just one hour later, we would have been counting the bodies.
Every tragedy is an opportunity for change, but this is Uganda. Our learning curve is L-shaped.
Fire at Owino ©Daily Monitor
So here’s my list of 5 things we won’t learn from the Owino Market fire.
One:
That with only 55 trained personnel, five fire trucks, no retractable ladders and no hydrants at all, the Uganda police fire department is in a dismal state, in need of urgent funding and staffing.
Two:
That the Kampala City Council physical planning office is dead. With the rapid expansion of the city and a daytime population of three million people, hiring 11 men to work in the KCC Town Planner’s office is tomfoolery. 11 people cannot effectively supervise all the activity within the KCC headquarters and so to expect them to properly administer the development of the entire city is outrageous.
Three:
That Uganda badly needs a comprehensive fire safety law to ensure compliance to safety regulations and to hold property owners – or the state – liable in case of preventable accidents. The idea of a fire safety law was kicked back and forth after the April 14th 2008 fire at Buddo Junior School, but to date nothing has been done.
Four:
That there should be a National Day for the Caning of All Politicians. I spent much of yesterday afternoon at Owino Market. Within the space of about three hours, I counted 17 local and national politicians who visited the market to ‘show their sympathy’ to the vendors. Opposition leaders blamed the government for not investing in the safety of the people. Cabinet ministers made unrealistic promises of compensation. Members of Parliament said enough was enough and it was time for the people to demand more for their taxes. None of them mentioned he obvious: that the vendors were sitting on a time bomb, that the politicians all knew it and that they chose to do absolutely nothing.
Five:
That life is not sacred in Uganda. Listening to radio yesterday, I was impressed, but amused by the outrage. The police do not protect! The fire brigade is useless! The Mayor should resign! Government is more interested in our taxes than in our lives! Life is not sacred in Uganda. Human sacrifice, child rape, increasing armed robbery, no drugs in public hospitals, theft of money for life-saving malaria treatments, the highest road accident figures in eastern Africa … and a government that does nothing.
