By Alfie Barrie a Television Anchor and Columnist
This is not the first time that a devastating inferno has gutted deprived communities. However, the veracity, scale and devastation that this one left in its wake at Susan’s Bay is particularly poignant! The scorching blaze can best be likened to a destruction caused by an unmanned laser-guided inter-continental ballistic missile.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, but in an already overcrowded community with pieces of timber and metal sheets in which dozens of people domicile, coupled with poor electrical wiring system and illegal connection to the national grid, with most people using Kerosene lamp in their home when there is power outage, one can only guess!.
As always Authorities will visit the affected scene with their episodic reporters accompanying them and they will deliver hollow sympathetic messages and make some tokenistic donations that cannot even last a couple of days, and life goes on until another one strikes again. It is a vicious circle of tragedy! These already tragedy exhausted people are left to hold the slack as their life long savings disappear within a blink of an eye.
They will go through the excruciating prospect of re-building with strong possibility of it happening again. For me, the use of “let us stand with Susan’s Bay” on social media is half-baked and over glamourizing. As a country, we should be talking about the deep seated problems that have spanned decades and that go beyond a particular political term limit. It is laudable that we are now having a standalone National Disaster Management Agency, but for the NDMA to achieve effective disaster risk reduction, it needs to be armed with adequate resources.
The City Council should also strive to have robust building permit regime because as of now any one can build anywhere as long as you hitch your wagon with the correct authority. In fact, there are some high rise disaster susceptible buildings that are popping up all over the place without the authorities’ knowledge. The Ministry of Lands and Country Planning should lay much emphasis on country planning with low cost housing being at the heart of its operation. Private public partnership will help accelerate that program.
I like the move the current Minister, Dr. Turad Senesie, is making with regards having dialogue on land issue and premium on country planning, this is in stark contrast to his fire brand predecessor who almost stoked conflict with his special vendetta driven predilection for land recovery at all cost. Long term decentralization of development in other areas of the country will help to decongest the city. Freetown is currently having a great deal of surplus to requirement.
The process of re-location should be carefully calibrated as moving people from where they were born and irking their living is quite tough. The place of re-location should have all the basic amenities including economic activities. In some instances where re-location is impossible, adequate disaster resilient strategy needs to be in place with effective early warning signs activated.
The issue of slums is not just unique to us, it is a worldwide problem we however need to reduce the ubiquitous nature of it and manage them properly. I am also not oblivious of the fact that there are some people who despite all the signs of pending disaster they will still opt to co-habit with it. Some people are just too eccentric!
