Floods exposed shoddy jobs of our infrastructure

Mmegi Editor | Wednesday March 1, 2017 11:20

Mid-December 2016, they warned Batswana that the second half of the rainy season in January and February 2017 will be characterised by heavy rains countrywide, with a risk of flooding on the scale of the disasters that occurred in 2000. We applauded the Meteorological Department.

They reminded us of the worst floods ever in the 1999/2000 rainy season that covered huge areas of Botswana. We all know that the Southern African region experienced successive El Nino events during the cropping seasons of 2014/2015, characterised by extremely dry conditions, heatwaves, drying up of major dams and associated crop and livestock failure.

Just recently, the Department warned us of heavy rains of up to 100 ml in 24 hours, as well as floods in the North East, Central and Gantsi districts, as a tropical cyclone known as Dineo bursts into the region, from the Indian Ocean.

With winds of up to 212 kms per hour, Cyclone Dineo caused destruction in Mozambique, particularly the coastal areas, Mpumalanga (South Africa) and southern parts of Zimbabwe and some parts in Botswana. In some parts of Botswana, the rains caused floods, particularly where soils already have high moisture. Cyclone Dineo added to a very wet season, where most areas have already received above average rainfall. All indications point to continued strong rains for the remainder of the season, which could push into April. At least we know what to expect until April 2017. While we appreciate the good rains, they have caused the country a lot of damage. The rains exposed poor workmanship of our infrastructure especially our bridges and roads networks.

Our infrastructure is falling apart thanks to the good rains that the Meteorological Department predicted and warned us about. It shows that as a country we appreciate sub-standard jobs as Cyclone Dineo has proven to us. Some of the major roads like A1 in Lobatse and A3 near Nata were closed after the infrastructure networks were destroyed and collapsed under the pressure of floods.  This demonstrates that the quality of our road network is very poor. Imagine if these rains were to continue for the next six months! All of our tarred roads will be washed away.

Thanks to the rains; we learnt a valuable lesson; never substitute quality for quantity. Quality comes at a price.

 

Today’s thought

“The public should start taking note and heed of what we tell them.” 

- Thabang Botshoma