News & Comment
Rain: A Blessing which Capitalism Turns into a Curse!

News

Friday 29th April 2016, the Capital FM reported that four people were behind a perimeter wall collapsed. This was after the heavy rains which started on Thursday resulted in flooding on highways within the city resulting in major traffic snarl ups. Some of the roads affected on Friday within the city according to the Kenya Red cross included Dennis Pritt road, Bunyala, Commercial Street and Uhuru Highway. Other than Nairobi, the rains have caused damage in several other areas within the country including a landslide in Nyeri and Muranga County. Though both the National and County Governments to improve the drainage sector have allocated millions of shillings, the problem has persisted in almost in all rainy seasons within Nairobi and other parts of the country.

Comment

Despite the Meteorological Department predictions of the heavy downpour nearly three months ago, it seems the Government paid no concern to that information. May last year, rain water found its way into homes in some residential estates like South C Nairobi resulting into a loss of properties. Roads including the Mombasa – Nairobi highway become flooded thus resembling swimming pools that become impassable. This causes concern especially on travelling sector of which the Passenger Services Vehicles owners raise the bus fare as witnessed in Nairobi.

When the long rain season begins (April - June), it has become prevalent in Kenya to witness huge losses of properties even worse loss of human lives. This calamity which has persisted almost in all rainy seasons has apparently shown poor urban planning as well the poor state of Kenya’s roads. Though the Government has repeatedly professed publicly that it has improved road networks, but is when the rainfall starts then truth of the matter becomes perceptible.

Additionally, the roads are narrow and badly managed thus resulting into major traffic jams even if it is not raining. It is destruction after another as if the rain catches the Government off guard! All this implies the delicacy of the secular governments particularly the so-called third world countries in managing the affairs of people and their properties. Governments prone to catastrophes which even before they happen welcome them! Many of the projects deemed as developmental are normally financed through loans from foreign countries. For example, the expansion of the Nairobi’s Ngong Road into a dual carriageway is financed by the Japanese Government which has already granted Kenya Ksh1.3 billion. And this is tragic since these loans are colonial tools used by the West to destabilize the economy of other countries thus becoming debt-filled cumulative interest. Furthermore, many of these funds allocated to these projects ends up in the bellies of certain individuals thus roads are maintained only in defiance of any effectiveness.

Public transport is indeed a public need which any effective government will take seriously. Unfortunately this is not the case within secular regimes and its rulers who do not care for their own citizens. The rulers who have implemented the Capitalist system which is designed only to care for the ruling elite and its entourage. This band of elite’s normally mock people when the destructions occur. Only a responsible leader who will rule under the Khilafah "Caliphate" state (Caliphate) upon the method of the Prophethood – unique state that puts the public interests in its full scale. Here is Umar bin Khattab (ra) – deeply concerned Khalifah who once in Iraq said, “If a goat tripped on the road I would be afraid that Allah would ask me why you didn’t pave the road for her O Umar?”

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Shabani Mwalimu
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in Kenya