Intrigue, accusations threaten to tear apart already weak City Hall

When Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago took oath on June 6, 2016, with all the 34 KCCA councillors that were elected to represent the city electoral zones, a new political script was opened at City Hall.
For the three previous years, the political wing at City Hall had been disbanded following the botched impeachment of Mr Lukwago over alleged incompetence. His absence at City Hall stalled many projects because they needed him to either flagged them off or approve them.
This vacuum was a punch in the face for Kampala residents who had entrusted Mr Lukwago and the councillors with their support to lobby for them and bring them services.
Before his impeachment, Mr Lukwago had always sailed through stormy waters, claiming that KCCA executive director Jennifer Musisi and then Kampala minister Frank Tumwebaze were working to fail him. However, when he returned to City Hall for a second term, little did he know that he would still pull ropes with the technical wing.
Since Ms Kamya’s appointment as KCCA minister, the two have been clashing. Councillors, who constitute the political wing, have also turned guns against Ms Kamya, accusing her of sabotaging their resolutions, which they think, if approved, would propel the city forward.
Ms Kamya, a former Opposition big-wig and a critique of President Museveni, said she had accepted the appointment as minister because she shares a vision with Mr Museveni.
She would later declare to President Museveni during one of the tours to Kawempe Market that she would ensure that the President gets 75 per cent of the Kampala votes in 20121.
The councillors, majority of who are Opposition, have since looked at her as Mr Museveni’s agent who does not care about service delivery, but rather about soliciting support for Mr Museveni.
They accuse her of making controversial policies, which they claim overshadows their work and hence making them irrelevant before their voters.
To settle this impasse, they have asked her to resign. But the minister has scoffed at them, saying by virtue of being a minister, she has the powers to make policies for the betterment of the city, a claim the councillors contest.
According to Section 7 (1) (a) of the KCCA Act, the Authority is mandated to initiate and formulate policies. Section 8(1) of the same Act gives the Authority legislative powers to make ordinances not inconsistent with the Constitution or any other law made by Parliament.
However, despite passing resolutions, they have remained on paper as Ms Kamya, who is supposed to endorse them, has sat on them despite several reminders.
Some of the resolutions passed by council are; power sharing for division mayors, streamlining power between the political and technical team in line with the KCCA Act, payment of Lord Mayor Lukwago’s salary arrears, gazetting some city roads for vendors and reducing rental rate in markets managed by KCCA.
Kampala is comprised of five divisions; Kawempe, Nakawa, Makindye, Rubaga and Kampala Central. The current status is that all their budgets are managed by the technical wing.
But the division mayors argue that since they have town clerks as their accounting officers, they deserve independent financial accounts so that they can start setting their priority areas. However, their demand to have this power hasn’t been approved by the minister.
Last year, controversy ensued over the eviction of street vendors. Whereas council had halted the eviction and resolved to gazette some roads for the vendors to operate from during evening hours, the minister came up with a policy to evict them, something that irked the former.
“This policy was unanimously passed by Cabinet and I have been told to implement it as a minister for Kampala,” Mr Kamya said at the time.
But councillors accuse her of failing to bring the political and technical teams to work together. They also claim that she doesn’t engage the political wing on the new policies for the city.

Committee set
A six-man select committee has been set to engage Ms Kamya on harmonising the political and technical wings and also probe why she doesn’t implement some of the resolutions passed by council.
This committee is comprised of the KCCA acting deputy executive director Andrew Kitaka, deputy lord mayor Sarah Kanyike and the chairperson of the engineering and technical services, Mr Kenedy Okello, among others.
On Wednesday last week, Mr Okello, who is also the male councillor representing Nakawa, told council that the minister denied receiving any of the resolutions from council.
“The minister told us that she has never received our resolutions and she asked us to send them to her so that she could assess them,” he said.
But councillors protested the minister’s excuse, saying she was just playing hide and seek. Mr Okello noted that they would continue engaging her until sanity is restored at City Hall.
About a month ago, council suspended the budget process because their initial budget for the financial year 2016/17 had been slashed from Shs563b to Shs314b, a move which KCCA councillors protested.
Although they invited Ms Kamya to explain the budget cut, she has not honoured their invitation.
However, Ms Kamya argues that by being a minister, she has powers to determine which policy ought to be implemented.
According to Section 79(1) (a) of the KCCA Act, the minister shall have powers to vary or rescind any decision of the Authority which is in contravention of any law or government policy, with the approval of Cabinet.
But Mr Lukwago argues that since she was appointed minister, Ms Kamya is rushing to make decisions, something he says is intended to deprive Kampala residents of their rights to access services.
“As elected leaders, we made a social contract with the people of Kampala to deliver services to them. But it’s heartbreaking to see how madam Beti Kamya is behaving. Her actions are making us incapacitated to deliver services in the city because she has deliberately failed to approve the resolutions that we have previously made,” he says.
Mr Lukwago adds that to reduce clashes, leaders at City Hall must read and understand the KCCA Act which outlines the roles each person must play.
He accuses Ms Kamya for usurping his powers yet Section 11 of the Act mandates him to be the political head of the city.
Since Ms Kamya’s appointment as minister, Ms Musisi, who is the accounting officer, has taken a low profile, which political observers say has been caused by Kamya, whom they say is more enthusiastic about power as witnessed by the different trips and crisis meetings she holds in the city.
With four more years still remaining on their time at City Hall, it remains unclear on how the minister and the political wing at City Hall will reconcile their differences, but what is clear is the people of Kampala need services.