By JOHNSON KANAMUGIRE

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The implementation of floods control plan will delay due to limited access of funds, leaving many Rwandans at the risk of destruction during the long rainy season.

Particularly, Kigali City with over 115 critical points and waterways mapped as being responsible for perennial losses of human lives as well as property and infrastructure damages, currently suffers Rwf40 billion funding shortfall to undertake rehabilitation and expansion works.

Rwanda Today learnt that apart from the Sebeya river floods control project which covers Rubavu, Rutsiro, Nyabihu and Ngororero, and the Volcano area floods in Musanze which had secured funding and underway, mitigation schemes for several other critical flood hotspots will not materialise soon.

“The City of Kigali is still mobilising the budget for these,” City officials told Rwanda Today, adding that removal of illegal structures from wetlands so far offered hopes that the extent of flood damages could be minimised this time.

“From December 2019 over 6000 illegal properties were removed from wetlands and this has created more capacity for wetlands to hold and retain more stormwater,” City officials noted in a message to Rwanda Today.

The weatherman is yet to issue the seasonal forecasts, but rains have already been wreaking havoc in several parts of the country over the past weeks with the Emergency management Ministry (minema) tallying more than 34 deaths and 76 injuries since January.

More than 498 homes have been destroyed in two months. This paints a grim picture of what lies ahead as the country braces for the March to May long rain season characterized mostly by adverse weather events that claim a big share of the annual disaster damages, having accounted for 203 of the total 293 deaths linked to disasters last year as per MINEMA data.

Floods effects are particularly being felt in Kigali City in spite of its evictions of families from disaster risk zones.