Auditor General exposes state's poor disaster preparedness despite early warning

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu. [Boniface Okendo, Standard] 

As floods continue to ravage various parts of the country leaving a trail of death and destruction, a report by the Auditor General has faulted the government's response to humanitarian emergency.

Even as President William Ruto defended the government's response to the floods, the Auditor General says that the government had not adequately resourced relevant departments charged with flood management with personnel and material necessary for effective flood response.

The level of unpreparedness was exposed in October late last year when President Ruto downplayed a prediction by the Kenya Meteorological Department that the country would experience El Nino rains, saying the department had scaled it down to short rains.

The report censures the government’s lead agencies in disaster management and relief operations for negligence by failing to act on early warnings issued by other departments on impending floods to avert catastrophe.

The Auditor General Nancy Gathungu made her observation in a performance audit report on the Response to Floods in Kenya by the State Department for Internal Security and National Administration (SDISNA) and Directorate of Special Programmes in the State Department for the Arid and Semi-arid Land and Regional Development.

The report covering a period of five years, from July 2017 to June 2022, focused on the operations of the two departments.

According to the Auditor General, the two departments were charged with ensuring that flooding did not result in a humanitarian crisis. "The audit revealed that government response to humanitarian emergencies was characterised by inadequacies and deficiencies in response and recovery.”

Gathungu says in her report that government actors as well as the community had not acted on flood early warning by the Kenya Metrological Department (KMD) and the Water Resources Authority (WRA).

She also notes that the government lacks a focal lead agency at the national level to handle disasters arising from floods, despite this being one of the leading natural disasters in the country.

The audit calls for effective contingency planning that should detail the required response interventions associated with resources.

The contingency plans should also assign response responsibilities to various actors, as well as outline a monitoring and evaluation framework.

Gathungu states that currently responsibility for managing floods is spread across different entities, each talking about different aspects of the flood.

The report also faulted the national and county governments for failing to map evacuation routes, designate evacuation centres and provide information about the same to the communities.

The government also failed to provide communities with evacuation tools and equipment such as vehicles and boats to enable them to reach evacuation centres.

The Auditor General further reveals that the relief process was marred with weaknesses as relief supplies were inadequate and did not conform to the needs assessment of the victims.

Githungu raises concern over the procurement process of the relief supplies and the cost involved.

The audit further reveals that the information by KMD and WRA had been communicated through various stakeholders including the National Government Administration Officers (NGAOs) chain of command, local FM radio stations and short messaging services (SMS) by the Kenya Red Cross Society.

She says that the perennial floods have caused deaths, resulted in destruction of property, reversed gains made in the health sector and impacted negatively on agricultural activities and industrial operations.

Gathungu further states that the country lacks a specific legal framework for flood management despite the development of the national policy on disaster management having commenced in 2002.

The policy was still in draft form as at the time of the audit.

The Auditor General adds that SDISNA is responsible for response coordination, which is managed through the National Disaster Operations Centre (NDOC) and the National Government Administration Officers (NGAOs).

The Auditor General states that though the mandate for response to humanitarian emergencies during flooding is spread across various entities, the NDOC and the Directorate of Special Programmes are key in disaster management and relief operations.

Gathungu notes that the Directorate of Special Programmes is responsible for humanitarian relief and rehabilitation.

She says that the audit was carried out as a result of floods occasioned by climate change becoming a common occurrence in the country, resulting in significant loss of property, lives and livelihoods.

“According to the 2019 World Bank report on Kenya’s Natural Disaster Risk profile, floods affect an average of 150,000 people annually,” the audit report states.

“The occurrence of floods exacerbates poverty and food insecurity and compromises sanitation and water quality, leading to humanitarian crises. Floods do not only disrupt the provision of healthcare but also erode the gains made on housing/shelter, manufacturing and agriculture.”

Gathungu says there have been significant public concerns about flood emergencies in the country hence the need for her office to establish the government response to floods-related disasters to ensure minimal losses and effective and fast recovery after flooding.

The government has also been accused of failing to ensure victims of floods were supported to resume their normal lives as it only concentrated on the repair of damaged roads and bridges, leaving out key infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and markets.

Gathungu hopes that corrective action will be taken in line with the recommendation of the audit performance report.

The auditor said the performance of NDOC and the Directorate of Special Programmes was examined with respect to the preparedness measures in place for response, evacuation, relief, process, recovery after flooding, and coordination of actors.

The audit covered four areas prone to flooding with selected counties being sampled for data collection as follows; Baringo and Narok counties in the Rift Valley catchment area, Busia county in Lake Victoria North catchment, Garissa and Tana River counties in Tana catchment area and Kisumu county in Lake Victoria South catchment area.

The Auditor General says where good plans are in place, early warning information should be communicated to County Commissioners or Deputy Commissioners in flood-prone areas who in turn convene stakeholders’ coordination meetings to discuss the contents of the early warning and evaluate the levels of preparedness.

“However, the audit observed that only three out of 54 county-level Disaster Management Committees (DMC) meeting minutes reviewed indicated that evidence of deliberation of flood early warning and evaluation of the level of preparedness,” states Gathungu.

The report states that that none of the counties had mapped evacuation routes while only Kisumu county had designated evacuation centres but were in a dilapidated state.

The report further states that the relief process was marred with weaknesses, “as to save lives, the form of relief provided should be sufficient, based on needs, and delivered in a timely manner. The procurement and distribution of relief supplies should also be cost-effective.”

“Due to incomplete data provided by the Directorate of Special Programmes, the audit could not establish the sufficiency, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness of the relief process," revealed the audit.

A review of the relief correspondence files at the Directorate of Special Programmes offices, the report states lacked the necessary supporting documents such as assessment reports of minutes.

Ms Gathungu further states that there were limited recovery intervention measures by the government towards the affected communities and the rehabilitation of critical infrastructure.

“Recovery in flood management entails enabling people to return their livelihoods to normalcy and setting up systems to ensure resilience to floods in future."

"The audit revealed that much of the recovery interventions implemented by the government were limited to the repair of damaged roads and bridges, leaving out community livelihoods and key critical infrastructures such as schools, hospitals, and marketplaces,” the report states.

The Auditor General calls for the establishment of a focal lead agency at the national level to spearhead flood management considering that floods were one of the leading disasters in the country.

“The audit revealed that there was no focal national government entity specially charged with the mandate for flood response. Instead, responsibilities were spread across several entities, each talking about different aspects of a flood as a disaster,” Gathungu states.

Gathungu further revealed that the two lead agencies handling disaster in the country namely the NDOC and the Directorate of Special Programmes lacked adequate institutional capacity.

She said the two entities were not facilitated with human and material resources necessary for flood response.