Mutual finger-pointing has followed the latest floods in Bulgaria.

After the heavy rain this past weekend, television viewers saw the now-customary interviews with people whose houses and land had been partly submerged and were crying out for help from local and national authorities. Local authorities blamed national authorities for their inertia, and national authorities responded, in part, by blaming local authorities.

In one interview, the mayor of a village said that he had tried to go ahead with sending a team to clear a river to pre-empt flooding, but had been told off by representatives of national authority saying that he was exceeding his powers.

Facing an inevitable call from an opposition party for her resignation, Disaster Management Minister Emel Etem gave a series of interviews. Variously, she called on local authorities to renovate water supply and sewerage infrastructure, called for greater control by local authorities to prevent and remove illegal construction, said that all that could be done had been done, said that climate change would make further floods inevitable, and said that, in any case, her ministry did not have enough money to cope with flooding.

With neighbouring countries downstream from Bulgaria’s major rivers also affected, it was a matter of time before official complaints were received. This has been the pattern in past years.

Given that floods in recent years have caused loss of life, serious damage to private property and devastation in some agricultural areas, it is mystifying as to what it will take before adequate resources are devoted to flood prevention and control, and to swift action in response to flood situations.

The sad fact is that everyone is well acquainted with the problem, but this has not yet translated into a solution. After the 2005 floods, Bulgarian media reports pointed out that river clearance and maintenance of infrastructure were woefully inadequate. Summers have passed and little or nothing has been done, and every tree and log that has not been cleared from a river remains as a potential torpedo that could scupper a bridge. There is much talk about illegal and excessive construction and its negative impact on the tourism and property markets, but the damage caused by such construction in ecologically sensitive areas swiftly becomes evident after heavy rain.

Further, if a Cabinet minister is prepared to say that climate change makes further such disasters inevitable, but that too little money has been allocated to cope with the impact of such disasters, are the people of Bulgaria expected to simply accept this?

Even in the context of limited financial and human resources, there needs to be clarity about the respective powers and responsibilities of national and local government. This requires urgent and mature dialogue among the various institutions of government to come up with pre-emptive action. Those who sought elected office so keenly so recently in the municipal elections need to take up the responsibility to ensure that not every bout of rain floods property and makes streets impassable, and indeed, to act with honesty and determination against inappropriate construction.

Failure by those in elected office to act with maturity and responsibility, rather than indulging in recriminations and excuses in the wake of the next floods, would be yet another reason why the people of Bulgaria are so skeptical about politicians as a whole.