Dear Editor,

I read with a heavy heart about the recent and not for the first time, precious young lives, homes, and infrastructure that were lost or damaged due to flush flooding by some our significant river systems like the Lunga River. Although we cannot control the extreme rainy conditions, the least we can do is be proactive in controlling and minimizing the extent of damages that are going to be caused by such events. The responsible Govt Ministries can be proactive by establishing fundamental-river-management policies and river improvement plans, particularly for river systems around the country that can cause significant damage to our people's livelihood and infrastructure. That is if no such policy is all ready in place. Based on these policies and plans, river training works can be implemented throughout our country's river systems.

The types of river training works shall be on a case-by-case basis based on research findings of the river systems and on simulated geological deformation by fluvial processes in river channels. This may sound like an expensive exercise for our Government and it will be initially, but how do we put a value to someone's life and in the long term, the infrastructure repair works can be greatly reduced. I think its high time that the responsible Govt Ministries, communities, landowners and stakeholders become proactive on this issue.