The government has once again been caught flat-footed as floods sweep away Kenyans in the ongoing heavy rains, raising questions over the country’s preparedness in disaster management.

It has been reduced to only providing victims of flood relief food after arriving at tragedy scenes long after lives have been lost.

Despite flood early warning information through the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) and Water Resources Authority (WRA), there has always been a lack of urgent action.

The IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC) had also issued a similar alert by as early as January on the prospect of heavy rains.

Though the floods menace is a natural phenomenon that cannot be stopped by man, both the national and county governments were fully aware of the impending heavy rains. With proper planning and preparation from the two levels of government, some lives would have been saved lives and minimise damage to property.

With the use of science and technology, the country was better placed to identify the level of the disaster and best possible mitigation.

But as has been the tradition, the government’s level of preparedness to deal with natural disasters and other emergencies have always been wanting and riddled with knee-jerk reactions that only appears to give politicians an opportunity to rush to disaster scenes to exploit grieve for political aggrandizement.

Government administrators have convened meetings to discuss issues of relief distribution and other broader response issues, such as flood impacts and evacuation of victims.

National Disaster Operation Centre (NDOC), which is charged with the responsibility to undertake response coordination has been missing.

And despite NDOC having been in existence since 1998, it still lacks a legal framework to enable it to properly operate as a national government lead coordinator in disaster response.

The government must enact a law and policy on national disaster risk management.

It is disturbing that counties are sitting on Sh973 million for emergency services in the 2023/2024 financial year, raising questions over the use of public funds allocated towards disaster management. It is also unfortunate that disasters have become lucrative grave trains by state officials.