Auditor General: "Uganda's weather stations have old, faulty equipment"

As some people wonder why some of the predictions regarding Uganda's weather patterns have been off mark, the answer could partly lie in the Auditor General's report for the year ending December 2018.

According to the report, the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA), the body charged with providing timely information about weather is not well equipped to do the job.

According to the findings by the Auditor General, only Entebbe synoptic station reported meteorological data throughout the 24 hours as required by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

"The other synoptic stations were operating 12 hours during day but also had failed to observe the main standard hours of times of 3 am (0000z) and 9 pm (1800z)," the report notes.

The authority had told Ugandans to prepare for rains at the beginning of March but this did not come to pass. Parts of the country started experiencing rains in the last week of this month, something that UNMA attributed to the cyclone that ravaged parts of Southern Africa.

The report said that apart from the weather equipment at Entebbe station that were calibrated inJanuary 2017, all the other equipment in different stations had not been calibrated.

"By audit time, only 29 (56%) out of 52 manual weather stations were functional, 43 automatic weather stations had been installed but also they were not regularly reporting and no weather radars had been installed," the report noted.

The report also noted that UNMA did not have a data backup system as required by WMO and only 80% of rainfall records and 40% of temperature records had been digitalised.

As a result, seasonal climate outlooks were not being received by the farmers on a quarterly basis as it is supposed to be the case.

"UNMA still faces challenges of inadequate essential equipment, uncalibrated equipment, limited coverage and functionality of stations and lack of high speed processing facilities, among others. The measures put in place by UNMA to produce and disseminate accurate, timely and comprehensive meteorological information are still inadequate and, therefore, UNMA’s strategic objectives are likely not be achieved," the report notes.

Moving forward, the Auditor General says UNMA should prioritise calibration of equipment in its budget, pursue regional collaborative arrangements with other neighbouring states for possible partnerships and also in the long run set up calibration laboratories.

The report also advises UNMA management to plan and budget for the required equipment and instruments and also liaise with relevant authorities to ensure that stations are equipped with essential equipment and instruments.