Up in Smoke: An Opportunity in the Dark Cloud

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday when persons of the Christian persuasion go to church to have ash smeared on their foreheads as a symbol of the beginning of Lent. This is the start of fasting and reflection. Coincidentally, it was the time when we, the residents of Kampala, woke up to the grim reality of the time-bomb waiting to blow off downtown. Sections of one of the biggest and most crowded markets in this city [and by scale, in the country] was engulfed by an inferno that burned itself out into ashes.

Despite the efforts by the Uganda Police and private fire-fighters, there was little to salvage when the smoke cleared. The scene was dominated by wails and lamentations added to a myriad of conspiracy theories of what could have caused this. These ranged from the bizarre--like the Devil's hand [as usual this side of the Sahara], arsonists hired by owners of the buses with whom these market traders were rivaling for space, one of government's "dirty tricks", to mention just a few. There are however some unbelievable, but nevertheless unsurprising, accounts like this below:

"The fire destroyed property worth millions at the market, with some traders losing millions of cash, kept in the stalls"

Although the main fire station is only around the corner from the market, angry traders said it had taken fire fighters one-and-a-half hours to arrive at the scene. The fire was eventually put out after six hours.

“They came late at the scene and parked the fire tender claiming that they were waiting for an order from their bosses to extinguish the fire,” Mr Abubaker Mulinde, a local councillor who lost four stalls in the market, said. He said the fire-fighters continued to look on as the fire spread, until fire engines from Entebbe International Airport and from two private fire-fighting firms arrived and started battling the blaze.

The Inspector of Police, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, said his fire-fighters had arrived at the scene on time but could not gain entry to the market due to “crazy congestion”. “We have new cars but it was difficult to reach there,” Maj. Gen. Kayihura said. “There were no access roads to enable our fire tenders reach where the fire was. We tried to pass through St. Balikuddembe Market but it was the same case.”

While sympathies are expected, I think it is time to use this incident to seriously reflect about the state of Kampala, crowded streets, disorder, total absence of planning by the city authorities and related issues. Over the next forty days of Lent, instead of organising national prayers by the religious leaders over the tragedy, these same leaders should throw their energies in pressuring government and Kampala City Council to decongest the city and instill stern measures that will prevent such scenarios and worse from happening again and again and again and again and again.

There have been fires in schools, in markets, in factories, in homes and other places but over time this has been relegated to the private grief of the victims. While the rest of us, including the fatsos in government [especially ministers of disaster preparedness, urban planning, among others] and at City Hall, go back to grind until the next disaster.

PS: A point to ponder for those who deal with large sums of money. Why would someone keep millions of shillings in a stall yet there are banks across the street. I don't sympathise with such people at all....around that area, there is Pride Microfinance, Centenary Bank, Bank of Africa and two other microfinance institutions. Let us use this Lent period to learn some money sense...Now that cash is ash yet if this cash was in the bank and the bank was ash, you would still get cash back.