Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) is set to deploy a team of covert “ambience ambassadors” to identify and apprehend people who litter in the city as part of efforts to improve sanitation.
Speaking on Saturday during the launch of the mandatory monthly National Cleaning Day, KCCA executive director Hajjat Sharifah Buzeki said the undercover ambassadors will monitor public spaces and hold offenders accountable for indiscriminate littering.
Buzeki said the National Cleaning Day has also revitalised Weyonje, KCCA’s weekly clean-up campaign held every Saturday to promote cleanliness and public health across the city.
She added that Kampala’s sanitation challenges are compounded by waste flowing into the capital from surrounding metropolitan areas, noting that the nationwide clean-up initiative is expected to reduce the volume of garbage entering the city.
Despite the generally positive public response to the exercise, large heaps of garbage remained along roads in several parts of Kampala throughout the weekend after residents participated in the clean-up.
In Kawempe Division, piles of waste were visible along several roads awaiting collection.
KCCA spokesperson Daniel Nuwabine acknowledged that the inaugural National Cleaning Day had generated unusually large volumes of waste across the city. He said the exercise had exposed the extent of garbage accumulation in many communities, indicating that some residents had been living with significant amounts of waste in their homes and neighbourhoods.
Nuwabine said KCCA, working with private waste collection companies, had intensified efforts to clear all the waste generated during the exercise. Meanwhile, Buzeki welcomed the additional government funding allocated to the authority, saying it will strengthen Kampala’s waste management capacity.
According to Buzeki, part of the funding will be used to rehabilitate the Buyala dumpsite, which receives large volumes of waste from Kampala and the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area.
She added that KCCA will also acquire additional garbage collection trucks to improve waste collection and disposal services across the city.
So what is so special about the international city of Kampala about having rubbish expert ambassadors to roam this city. One understands that this African city has got two cabinet ministers, one very large city administration, and politically it is an NRM headquarters! Why then is it suffering such dysfunctions that seems to highly cost the taxpayers an arm and a leg?
U can deploy the army if u like but u have got to invest a lot in attitude change. Invest in campaigns to promote cleaning and waste management in homesteads then we don’t have to have this cleaning days.
Imagine a country chunking out graduates who can’t clean up after messing! Even our education system is not helping or I should say the elite are not helping
Most Kampala residents don’t have access to the organised waste collections done by the private waste collection companies.
As for the informal settlements, being the majority communities in Kampala, residents have been living with their waste, which they discard in bits, on roads, roadside drainages, and other areas. This is often done discreetly at night or when it is raining.
The recent national cleaning exercise came as a godsend! Hence, the heaps and mountains of waste blocking roads in Kampala up to Monday!
As recent as 1987/88, when we had far less population in Kampala & GKA (Greater Kampala Area) … when we generated far less garbage, we had those large garbage bins all over the city, even in Namungoona!
FFWD today?
Correct observation. Kampala’s population has grown. This is typical of most African metropolises like Kinshasa, Lagos, Nairobi, Johannesburg, etc., where services don’t reach the majority of the urban populations, who live in the informal settlements/slums.