What (not) to do when an electric pole falls on your house.

Here are some presumptions…where there is smoke there is fire as sure as when an electric pole rots it topples over and if it is situated in a densely populated area, said pole and accompanying power lines will collapse on a house or two or three which will be destroyed in the ensuing blaze. The least of your worries will be the property losses if this occurs at night, there may be fatalities. However if it occurs at say 2pm mid afternoon on a working day, you will only be counting the cost of possessions lost in the fire.

The only music that plays when the roof is on fire are the sirens of the fire truck that arrives to put the fire out. In the ensuing commotion its easy for you to lose your head. In this event this is a series of blog posts offering advice on what (not) to do, from personal experience.

@the scene

Statements to Police

Picture the scene, TV news camera crews, smoke billowing, babies crying , neighbours in their multitude offering a helping hand either putting out the fire or rescuing what’s left of your possessions. The fire truck arrives, uniformed police are at the scene and they want to speak to you.You answer their questions as they write down your responses. This is what they call a statement. However this is not enough in Uganda, because of our peculiar circumstances. The fire brigade is a division of the police but it is not the police therefore it is a mistake to think that one statement will do for all. The statement you make at the scene is invariably a statement to the fire brigade. They all look and dressalike, true but they are not alike. Therefore, you must head to the area police station as soon as possible and make an official statement.

PS: It can’t be stressed enough how important it is to get the names of the officers at the scene, the police in Uganda, wear their names on their shirts and invariably have mobile phones, so take their names and numbers down. That also goes for any representative of the power company, in our case UMEME, who makes it to the scene.

Photographic Evidence

This means taking pictures of the scene. Officers from the police and fire department as well as from UMEME will take pictures at the scene to put in their reports. It’s also important that you take pictures of your own because the police, fire department and UMEME will not give theirs to you. Also if the cause of the fire is a falling power line, then its not your fault but the power company’s fault and the pictures are evidence in any case of negligence you may or may not bring against UMEME. More importantly if you are going to claim compensation from UMEME you need pictures to show the extent of the damage you suffered that must be compensated.

PS: If you don’t have a camera, use the one on your phone or call any one you know that has a camera and ask him/her to the scene to take pictures and pay for these services, they are essential.

The Yellow Bus on Entropy Drive

The yellow bus of yore that favoured symbol of populist campaign rhetoric or the cost of education, appropriate for a country that has embraced Universal Primary School Education like ours thanks in no small part to debt relief and the shrewdness of the donor community is at a cross roads. The discovery of oil and natural gas in Uganda along the Albertine Basin from Rhino Camp in Arua to the Semiliki, is that fork in the road. 

Before this discovery it was alright for the driver and the occupants of the bus to meander along in a general direction since the assumption was that what lay head could not be any worse than what they were leaving behind. However all that changed when oil was struck. It is no longer assumed but it is for certain now that what lies ahead is promising. Now the driver and his passengers have a choice to make whether to continue on the same course or plot a different course.

Staying on course leads our intrepid travelers to Entropy Drive this route has no demands and even fewer changes of scenery since it’s the familiar route, for both driver and passenger. Off course that is the road away from Entropy Drive, is unfamiliar to both passenger and driver so each must learn to rely on the other in order to get to where they are going. 

The National Oil and Gas Policy hints at how revenue from oil will be shared with the objective being to create lasting value for the entire nation. A petroleum fund is necessary, where revenues from taxes and exploration permits are invested, it should have a significant portion that is ring fenced for education. If nothing else is achieved more Ugandans should go to school from elementary to tertiary level without worrying about tuition, lunch and stationery all these requirements are to be met by the government from its Petroleum Fund.

 I don’t know about you but I would rather be in the bus turning off Entropy Drive and setting off on a different course but then I will have to trust my fellow passengers and the driver who better be learned. This in my humble opinion is the measure of the success of Uganda’s National Oil and Gas Policy that is how many Ugandans get educated and are learned to an international standard

A rooster takes credit for the dawn

Time check, 10 seconds to midnight, 31 December 1999,countdown begins

with baited breath and ends…..nothing happened…there is two ways to look at it …having heeded all the warnings about the Y2K bug …forearmed we, together, took action and a potential catastrophe was averted…or the whole thing was a hoax..fast forward to 31,December,2050, global warming by all available,known measures is averted. Will we be  able to say for sure it took human intervention to reverse the trend or was it part of a larger trend unaffected by human intervention, that is to say, a part of life on a living planet?

Part of life in Uganda today is incessant power cuts that can last at least 12 hours a day in response to this more folks are turning to alternative sources of electricity and heat for their daily needs such as cooking, lighting, phone charging, Barefoot Power Uganda offers some affordable solutions to this end. The goal of 100% renewable energy by 2050 is of no consequence to ordinary folks looking to keep the lights on after the latest delay in Bujjagali coinciding with the GoU falling behind on its payments to electricity suppliers making load shedding necessary.

Inadvertently foil that plan(100% renewable energy by 2050) or enable it…but then how can anyone claim credit or apportion blame? Its easy to say that the developed nations,  US& Europe,the old world if you will and the developing nations, the BRIC countries,Brazil,Russia,India and China failed to agree on what collective action to take to combat climate change at the recent UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa, therefore impending disaster looms for all, as the news media tells it.

In criminal law, intent trumps motive in a murder case, in other words, what one's intentions are determine guilt rather than why? This is why euthanasia is a crime, Dr JackKervokian pleaded in his defense that  he killed his patient to put him out of his misery for he  was terminally ill and in agony. The judge sentenced him to 10-25 years in prison for murder  not because the good doctor wanted to kill his patient's pain but because he killed him, on purpose.

Idealism kills the deal, in the words of Gordon Gekko, what has, my need to warm my food, boil water to drink, turn the light on to do my homework at night;got to do with saving the world? So I need charcoal for my stove, if it proves too expensive I will look for a stove that doesn't use charcoal, maybe gas or invent one. I don't know and don't care for the world except mine.

Population Control in the renewable energy debate

 A few weeks ago NTV run a feature in their 9pm bulletin highlighting population control and in particular neutering males. This means interfering with the sperm ducts and therefore with the man's ability to impregnate the woman. Has it come to this? Ddamulira Robert of WWF Uganda in this appearance on national television here in Uganda doesn't go that for but is he thinking what you are thinking?

Good News: Discovery WILL Air Climate Change Episode of 'Frozen Planet' | OnEarth Magazine

Good News: Discovery WILL Air Climate Change Episode of 'Frozen Planet' | OnEarth Magazine

India's Climate Change Ground Zero | OnEarth Magazine

India's Climate Change Ground Zero | OnEarth Magazine

We begin this week with a comment raised by guest on the show, Julius Wandera the PRO(spokesman) of UMEME (feel free to fill in your version of the acronym). Is anybody considering putting the board of directors and shareholders of that utility company out of its misery and for it to be reposessed by GoU (feel free again, to  interpret that acronym).

This if I recall is the UEB arrangement and the power blackouts of yester year, no thank you, atleast now the coat has a hook to hang on, so to speak. Not some nameless face less government organisation, a situation more aptly known as the tragedy of the commons. Today everyone knows that if you pay for curra and go a week without it, its UMEME's fault.

The problem with public ownership is that ultimately no individual is responsible for it and that results in negligence and crap service delivery or in the case of UBC, equipment disappearing and turning up in the most unlikely places.

The fact that UMEME's contract is up for renewal, their initial 7 years is up, now is the time for such questions to be raised and perhaps other service providers tapped up all except the GoU.