How political showmanship has replaced real leadership in Kampala’s crisis 

Several leading experts in urban, social and environmental issues have warned that Kampala faces a deep crisis if policymakers fail to put their egos aside and apply a holistic approach to its planning.

Over the past few weeks, Kampala has been dominated by political acrimony in the lead up to the Kawempe North by-election, and matters were not helped by the advent of the rainy season that has wrecked the city to the extent of losing several lives.

As a result, several key players have positioned themselves to express their concern about the city’s damaged reputation, much to the chagrin of social, political and economic observers. In the wake of the recent Kampala flooding that took away the lives of more than 10 people, The Observer has spoken to a number of experts who say the problem is endemic in nature that can only be overcome by a systematic approach by all stakeholders.

Amanda Ngabirano, an urban planner and academic, says it is now painfully clear that Kampala is not suffering from a lack of resources or institutional capacity, but from a complete failure of leadership, accountability and political integrity.

“From the events I have seen in the past few weeks, everyone wants to blame the other and shift blame. But it is the city dwellers who are suffering in all this. The fact is that at this rate, Kampala’s situation going to be a serious national issue. Several places are now inaccessible and people are taking several hours in a day just driving through the city. For me, I think the problem starts with the budget issue. Right now, what KCCA is doing is location-problem-solving instead of applying a holistic approach. KCCA is focusing on one junction after another yet the works need to be integrated and connected. Something is wrong in the budgeting,” she says.

Ngabirano notes that whereas over the past few months KCCA has upgraded some Kampala roads to tarmac and filled some potholes, it did not address the water flow problem.

“The drainage was forgotten. That’s why we have the flooding today. I think we may need to test this city’s problems in a militaristic way, otherwise, we are going to just suffocate. And you never know who will be affected one day? It may be the president’s convoy that gets stuck in floods.”

She summarizes Kampala’s problems as a recurring syndrome.

“I know they are now waiting for this rainy season to end and then we forget about it. So, the cycle continues. I have to speak the truth because I am also affected. Yesterday, I spent three hours in a traffic jam in a distance of just five kilometres,” she says.

SELECTIVE APPROACH?

Dr Fred Muhumuza, a development-oriented policy researcher, is baffled at how everything seems to be normal in spite of the several deaths from the Kampala flooding. For context, when the Kiteezi garbage dump collapsed last August and killed over 30 people, three top-most KCCA officials were charged for negligence but everything seems to be very normal in the wake of the flooding that killed 10 people.

“We are seeing a trend where government only responds to a public outcry? And where there’s not much public outcry, they don’t act at all. What is happening in Kampala is not unusual and was expected; but because it happens occasionally, that’s why everything remains normal,” he says.

Dr Muhumuza further notes that even if Kampala gets the funding it needs, KCCA may not achieve long-lasting goals due to limited planning.

“See, it will not be easy to move the buildings in swamps. KCCA lacks capacity to enforce the urban plan for a swampy area like Kampala. That for me is the grave thing that I don’t even think can be fixed. As people have said, we need to decongest Kampala. If you go to Nansana and other suburbs on the outskirts, there are people who now can stay there peacefully. There are banks there. There are courts, schools and shopping malls there. So, why are people coming to build Kampala?”

And yet more silently, while vast areas of the city are covered by water and infrastructure collapses, Kampala is witnessing the illegal structures expanding at an all-out rate; fuel stations popping up in neighborhoods, wetlands encroachment and uncontrolled informal development along drainage corridors.

They are not peculiar anomalies, especially to those of who know what it actually is. They are fruits of institutionalized corruption, intentional neglect and a patronage system that has translated regulatory obedience into a marketplace for political patronage and bribes.

Meanwhile, a senior official from the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema), who spoke to us on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, argues that the unaddressed construction activities in Kampala wetlands is the biggest impediment to the city’s ecological flow.

“The Nakivubo channel is the heart of Kampala’s drainage system but it is heavily silted and encroached on that little can be done to overcome flooding,” he reasons.

It should be noted that a few days ago, Kampala city lord mayor Erias Lukwago blamed businessman Hamis Kiggundu of blocking the Nakivubo drainage channels through his developments and thereby causing the flooding crisis in Kampala.

Nakivubo channel is a nine-kilometre natural channel with a catchment area straddling more than 27 kilometres that snakes its way through Kampala on its journey to Lake Victoria. However, the Nema official blames Kampala’s ecology system failure on the thousands of encroachers on Kampala’s wetlands.

“Kiggundu accesses less than 50 metres of the channel but we have areas like Garden City, Hotel Africana and Forest Mall that were constructed in the Nakivubo channel path. There are hundreds of construction sites taking place every day in the channels path that need to be stopped and controlled. What we need is a concerted effort from all the various stakeholders to ensure that any works done on the channel meet the environmental criteria. You just only have to go to the UK or Netherlands to realise that construction can be done on channels if appropriate drainage correction measures are taken,” he added.

POLITICAL POSTURING?

On March 31, the prime minister, Robinah Nabanja took a tour of the city’s infrastructure projects and ended up hosting the Kampala minister Minsa Kabanda, contractors, consultants and KCCA technical teams on an on-air TV show in the name of political supervision that witnessed various admissions and exchanges.

A former Kampala deputy residential city commissioner (DRCC) who prefers anonymity, said this tour and meeting was prompted by the recent fiasco in the Kawempe North by-election, where the ruling NRM party lost miserably to NUP candidate Erias Nalukoola, despite spending Shs 4 billion.

“This was a frantic bout of political theater aimed at diverting attention from the humiliating defeat because Mzee was hoodwinked. How else can one explain the shameless parade? This was a public relations circus meant specifically to pacify the president. It was a desperate last-ditch effort to demonstrate usefulness after political or administrative failure. And yet, where were the same officials during the actual flooding crisis?” he said.

“When Kampala was in open daylight submerged by floods that killed, crippled traffic, and destroyed livelihoods, they were nowhere to be found. Roads were rivers. Businesses and houses were under water. But they made no single televised visit. No press conference. No action plan. So, it was not politically fitting.”

DONOR QUESTION

At the end of Nabbanja’s meeting, The Observer understands that several questions emerged; chiefly what KCCA’s development partners or project funders can do when they see ministers ridiculing contractors and consultants in public—yet going around to ask them for support in private?

A top-level KCCA official who prefers not to be named so as to speak freely, told us that such conduct is not just weakening institutional credibility, but sending investors a signal that Kampala has no space for serious rule-of-law engagement.

“Until politics of self-preservation and grandstanding is removed from the management of Kampala, there is no service delivery. Everyone—the lord mayor, the Kampala ministers, the prime minister—is now part of the same dysfunctional political machinery that is more interested in show than substance. They are not public servants anymore. They are preservationists of their jobs,” warns the source.

“If Kampala is to be saved, it won’t be by public relations stunts or last-minute project tours. It will be by institutional rebirth, political honesty, and professional stewardship—the very things our city has been systematically deprived of. Albeit under our watch.”