Almost ten years since an agreement was signed between the government of Uganda and the UK-based real estate investor Opec Prime Properties to redevelop the Nakawa-Naguru estate into a modern satellite city, no progress has been made.

The project was to be implemented within ten years, which are now elapsing with absolutely nothing to show on the site. Now, the former tenants who were evicted in haste to pave way for redevelopment are demanding that the government reallocates the land to them.

When it emerged that Comer Group, one of Britain’s well-known real estate developers, was interested in the property, many Ugandans were in support as the existing houses had decayed to the extent of endangering their occupants.

It is, therefore, shameful that this project has joined many others where the government enters significant deals with investors without carrying out adequate due diligence to establish whether they are credible, reliable, capable and ready to undertake the task at hand.

Another example of such negligence is the former Shimoni primary school and teachers’ college site in Kampala’s city centre. The two institutions were hurriedly pulled down to make way for a hotel complex to be developed by one of Saudi Arabia’s richest men, but more than ten years later, it is not even clear who owns the land on which an incomplete structure stands.  

With all the machinery at the government’s disposal, how does it always manage to get it so wrong when attracting investors? Laziness and incompetence are possible factors, but corruption can’t be ruled out either.

In the case of Nakawa-Naguru estate, the government typically messed up by allocating some of the land it had already given to the main developer to other parties, leading to threats of litigation from Opec Prime Properties, and perhaps contributing to the subsequent loss of interest.

It is now reported that the ministry of Local Government, which managed [or mismanaged] the unsuccessful project, has handed over the property to Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).

Whoever is responsible, at the very least, the former tenants and people of Kampala and Uganda deserve an explanation as to what happened to this project.