KAMPALA – Road accidents are inevitable, and they are the major cause of death on road transport in Uganda and Africa as a continent. The controlled factors that can reduce road accidents include well developed road infrastructure, allowing vehicles in good working conditions on the road, deterrent penalties for road traffic offenders, awareness on road safety and deliberate campaign against fuel siphoning by locals. The rate at which fuel fire can move, cost lives, property, and the response required by police fire brigade is negatively skewed.
Siphoning gas refers to the practice of using a siphon to steal gasoline (petrol) from a vehicle’s fuel tank. In practice, this generally occurs only when fuel is scarce, due to rationing, high priced, or distribution has been disrupted in some manner and there is also a risk of igniting fuel vapors and causing an explosion. The damage caused by a fuel tank explosion on a busy highway would depend on several factors, including the size of the truck, the type of fuel, and the location of the explosion. The human toll would also be significant depending on the time of day and traffic conditions. The environmental damage where fuel spills contaminate soil and waterways leads to environmental cleanup costs, but the financial implications would include emergency response costs, medical expenses, vehicle damage, loss of business and property, and potential lawsuits.
While it’s challenging to provide a specific amount without more details, incidents involving fuel truck explosions can lead to damages ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of monies, depending on many factors. The cost of medical attention to survivors in the short and long term is immense, and it is very difficult to quantify the cost of lives that are being lost. Taking stock on the continent in the past few months, the death toll at Kogogwa has reached 15 and hundreds have been injured, in October 17 2024, 153 people lost their lives in a fuel tanker explosion and over 1000 were injured in Nigeria and still in Augst 2024, 85 people died and 65 others injured after a fuel tanker exploded in Tanzania. In August this year, 45 people were killed and more than 100 injured in central Nigeria when a petrol tanker crashed and then exploded as people tried to take the fuel. In May, a similar incident in Niger killed nearly 80 people.
Many Ugandans have expressed concern over the Kigogwa incident and blamed the locals for not taking precautions for their lives and safety after being warned by the truck accident driver, he warned the locals about the danger of fuel siphoning and later vanished in thin air as nobody could tell which direction he used for his safety. A section of Ugandans supported the local insisting that poverty is the major cause for locals who rush to siphon fuel from tankers while knowing what could be the end result. But despite the fact that there is poverty, people’s lives take priority as the right to live is a fundamental and first-class degree human right.
Over years, the ministry of works and transport has not taken any deliberate effort to carry out a national campaign against fuel siphoning, create awareness campaign on people who live along the major high ways on their safety while responding to general accidents but more particularly on fuel taker accidents. As experts, we show concern, and the nation must know that the ministry of works and transport has not fully exercised its mandate to save Ugandans from this dilemma.
In conclusion, let the concerned authorities wake up and save Ugandans, soonest we should be seeing posters along the major high ways campaigning against fuel siphoning, social media posts giving guidance on how locals must respond to fuel tanker accidents and finally the fuel tanker accident survivors should be reached out for an association to help them restore their dignity, incomes, lost property and use them as ambassadors against fuel siphoning. They have a good experience as they have tested the sweetness of fuel siphoning. It’s a matter of death and life, its committing suicide as fuel siphoning is a sweet and sour product with long-term devastating implications on individuals, families, communities, and economy.
SUPPORT THE FUEL TANKER ACCIDENT FIRE SERVIVORS AND USE THEM AS AMBASSADORS FOR A SAVING LIFE COMPAIGN
Denis Tukahikaho Ph.D. Expert on ESG and an Advocate on Health and Safety 0777 222 732.