In the United States, we are transitioning to wintry weather and we have set
our clocks back an hour. It is part of the Daylight Savings Time Program you
may remember. Most of what the west does makes no sense to me either but this
one is based on the west's desire to synthesize available resources from
Allah for the development of their people. Adjusting the clock (an invention) to
life is uniquely innovative. It may not be terribly valuable for Gambia
until we are able to figure out what to do with an extra hour of daylight. On
second thought, we could look at it not from the daylight aspect but from
productivity and comfort. It just dawned on me that much of the day is hot in
Gambia. That inhibits both farming and industry. Since most work is done outdoors
and since we cannot yet afford the energy requirements of round-the-clock
air-conditioning, it may be worthwhile for us to look into beginning the work
day an hour earlier and replacing that hour with an hour's break around mid-day
or closing for work an hour earlier than we currently do. If I were to
choose, I'd go for an extra hour of break at mid-day because the heat subsides
later in the day making it marginally insignificant to knock off an extra hour
earlier. I encourage you to study this phenomenon. It may not be valuable if
you have to legislate or force it like the set-settal but considered
persuasion could do the trick.
Forgive me for digressing. I must share with you that I am particularly
pleased and hopeful of events unfolding in Pakistan lately. They have actually
been brewing for some time now and we will make sure the affect is as benign as
possible on Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India. I am confident you
share that desire with us. I encourage you to advise General Musharaf that all
nations go through life-cycles and that martial law may work at a certain time
in the life of a nation but that at a different time it may prove comically
inferior to constitutional law. We must be encouraged by the General's wisdom
and I urge all of us to encourage him in his sojourn in circumspect. He
promised to relinquish his authority in the country's armed forces and promised
to hold elections no later than February of 08. One thing I want him to do is
to declare the end of martial law by this month's end so that electioneering
by parties will not be unduly burdened with the colour of martial law. In
effect, he declared that martial law in his opinion was necessary as a stop-gap
measure to prevent Pakistan's suicide and erosion of its gains under him. It
is a matter of perspectives, but nations don't commit suicides. Nationals do.
And to the extent all nationals commit suicide, the nation becomes dead.
WHen we last spoke, forgive me again, I shared the importance of The River
of Gambia on the basis of disaster-mitigation and resource management. Today,
and with the added caveat that if it weren't for the River, we would have had
no Gambia, I want to discuss how you handled the floods of the fall of 2003.
The West used it as a trans-shipment artery for slaves from the interior, and
wouldn't you know it, more of our people were drawn to its banks from
Senegal, Mali, Guinea, and Bissau even as parallel commerce in slaves was
flourishing at the Cassamance, Saloum, Bissau, and Mano Rivers.
The first thing that struck me was that both Response and mitigation was
coordinated by the Catholic Relief Services. This was shameful to me even though
the CRS was only too pleased to guide us. What I believe is that the Gambia
government should coordinate the Response and mitigation and it should invite
the NGOs such as the CRC to assist in whatever capacity they could to
alleviate the suffering of your people.
It is unfortunate that we cannot help ourselves even if our lives depended
on it but be that as it may, and having learned from this major shortcoming, I
want to share with you some of the basic tasks and considerations in
establishing an effective national disaster management program. In these
conversations, I will share general principles because I am ever confident that with the
proper utilization of Gambia's human resources, you should not be bored with
detail.
I know we have several national disasters to consider, namely:
Epidemics and Pandemics
Flood
Fire
Airline disaster
Shipwreck
Errant satellite falling on Gambian soil.
I will focus on floods because it presents the most hazard to large-scale
loss of life, crops, and communicable disease. And, the processes for flood
damage mitigation and prevention can be applied to most other areas of disaster
management.
One thing we must do is to understand the character of a flood and its
source. You and I both understand that a flood can issue from the River Gambia's
irregular flow and unseasonal flow rate, or that of either of the two confluent
rivers prior to River's gracing Gambia. This is because water flows from
highlands to lowlands and it seeks its level through immense odds, even the
strongest barricades as Katrina's breach of the corps' dike systems. We also
have the potential risk of the Atlantic flooding the other way but that is
historically more remote and because of the nature of our coastline, we ought to
manage the River system first. By the way, I am proud of you for your efforts
in reaching out to Senegal to consider protocols of collaboration in common
life. Indeed, the River and its management comprises the bulk of the
commonalities. The tow nations are populated by River people.
We have departments of Hydrometeorology, Agriculture, and water Resources,
Interior, and works and infrastructure. These, together with the armed forces
will form the crux of the disaster management system. I included the military
because their mission is the defense of Gambia from within and from without.
Since we do not risk an invasion from the US no time soon, we can utilize
our enormous military resources to yield Gambia value. Let us talk about
preventative measures first while in the meantime setting up an effective Water
Resource Management Board (The RIver Board) and Gambia Emergency Management
Association (GEMA or whatever we like). These commissions will not be a useless
dipstick bureaucracy, but will be engaged year-round, so they will mainly be
technical committees and will not be valuable as political appointees. The
Vice President can now focus on other ceremonial matters of government.
Oh, before I forget, the governors of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have
been engaged in negotiations under the auspices of the Federal Water Resources
Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to share ideas on mitigation of the
affects of droughts on their populations. I think they have resolved a critical
component of the corps' allocation and appropriation regime. I thought it was
funny when Governor Sonny Perdue came back to plead with us to pray for more
rain. That Sonny is a funny dude. You must commend him for proactivity though
and their talks yielded a more comprehensive regime for the corps'
allocation program. Of course and for obvious reasons, he did not share that detail
with all of us. Suffice it to say that with citizen conservation and soothing
prayer, I think we done good.
When I next speak with you, I will share the possible composition of TRB and
WAMMEH (Jammeh) that you may use as a base for your government's
consideration. I will end today with an idea on Monitoring and Data collection.
I understand we have a hydrologic station in Basse. If we do not already
have them, I recommend similar stations at McCarthy/Janjangbureh, Farafenni
(BambaTenda/Yellitenda), Bintang, Brikamaba, Kiang West National park, Kanilai
National Park/Sindola, and Essau, with a comprehensive Laboratory at the mouth
of Sandougou Bolong.
The hydrologic stations should be manned 24/7 by a 3-man crew, on of whom
should be a hydrologist. They will be collecting data on flow-rate, volume,
turbidity, dissolved oxygen, rainfall, wind-speeds, sedimentation, salinity,
inorganics, mineral content, catalog of River life, etc. The Hydromet can design
a task regime and parameters for the data. The main laboratory should be
provided with an experiment boat. If there is none, we can retrofit one of the
Navy's many boats for the purpose. It will be wise if we use a renewable-energy
fueled boat such as solar, wind, or some hybrid. That should come out of the
Water Resources budget or other. Of course it will have to be maintained
while in use and not just used to death without a maintenance program. This boat
can patrol the river equipped with early warning instruments and under the
joint purview of TRB and Water Resources. It must not be used as a pleasure
boat, or an election campaign boat. You can call it Deyda or Koro in honour of
those pioneer citizens.
I am aware of the OMVG but the OMVG is a regional org. and it needs this
support mechanism in order to be valuable and effective. It will be nice for the
OMVG folk to go to a meeting armed with such valuable and productive work to
guide their negotiations. Besides, you would wish to show your counterparts
that Gambia does her homework and is not just a freeloader on our partners.
This data collection and monitoring effort will also augment our capacity to
complete feasibility studies for any riverine infrastructure. You will never
have to pay foreign experts for feasibility studies that we can complete
ourselves. Disciplined data collection is the essence of a nation's life. It will
enable you to forecast more accurately or to visualize development more
appropriately. The data that is collected must be in the public domain or easily
accessible by schools and newspapers free of charge save for copying costs if
any. The best way is to publish the data regularly and allow citizens to keep
their own archives. In the area of Resource and disaster management, the
more dissemination the better. If we get real excited, we can have two of the
boats and use one to monitor and regulate industrial effluence into the river.
Another value of the data collection can be alert to dredging needs or the
health of wetlands along the river.
I am tired of writing now but I will see you soon again. It would be nice if
you make some effort toward the hydrologic stations, laboratory, and boats
before that time. If we cannot afford the boats at this time, let me know so
one of our colleagues at Ellen can spearhead a funds drive for two boats. We
will purchase them from Australia, Belgium, or Canada. The only drawback will
be that if we raise the funds from Ellen, we reserve the right to name the
boats and coordiante their activities. I know you wouldn't like that but its
only fair.
Haroun Masoud. MQDT. Darbo. Al Mutawakkil.
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