By MICHEAL WONIALA

Residents in Mbale City have blamed the government for the slow response after floods devastated the area killing over 20 people and destroying property worth millions of shillings..


Residents have been seen by this reporter retrieving dead bodies and car wreckage using Rudimentary tools since morning.

Mr.Sadiq Bogere ,a boda boda rider Among those who have been helping in retrieving the dead bodies says the government has been so slow


“The government has been very slow in responding to this tragedy, Ms Nabanja only came,toured,took pictures and went back to Kampala,there was no response at all”

He says it’s why the residents only had to come together to help.

“We had to gather among ourselves to remove the dead bodies,we have removed over 11 since morning from Nabuyoga river”

He says they have no tools.

“We are only using Ropes that we just solicited money to buy,we have out our lives in grave danger by swimming through this water and touching dead bodies “

Mr.Abdu Mugudwa says so many people are now homeless.

“We need government to provide us houses,we don’t have where to sleep because the floods took everything of ours”

Mr.Abadallah Magambo,Deputy speaker,Mbale City says the government should do more than talking .

“The prime minister only came and lied to us that they were going to provide submarines but it’s local who have been removing dead bodies with no single help from government”

“the government plus other relevant stakeholders should come in to action not to take photos and post on their social media to make it look like a political rally of propagandists but to do what is necessary of which I know they can do it.
We also need to evacuate our people and also provide psychosocial support”


He says the matter of urgency is a contingency plan.


“matter of urgency just like in any other disasters, securing people’s lives is the most important thing, you do this by first of all doing vulnerability analysis to determine the exact number of the casualties and the potential risk it posses to the rest of the population. Government should provide a contingency plan to mitigate the most likely waiting tsunami.

Apparently our people are still in fear because they have not only lost their dears ones but they are also still not settled because it has not stopped raining. There’s a probability that it will cause another damage”he says.