Lukwago, minister Namugwanya lock horns over KCCA amendment Bill

State minister for Kampala Affairs Benny Namugwanya (L) and Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago (R). PHOTO BY ABUBAKER LUBOWA

What you need to know:

New column. After being shelved for two years, the Kampala Capital City Authority Bill (2015) was last tabled by State minister for Kampala Benny Namugwanya. Upon receiving it, Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga tasked the Presidential Affairs Committee to handle it expeditiously within 49 days. However, Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago has vowed to fight the Bill. In the first of our Face-Off column, Amos Ngomoya sounds out Ms Namugwanya and Mr Lukwago on the views on the Bill and the management of the city.

Namugwanya’s view

The KCCA Amendment Bill 2015 that was recently tabled in Parliament has unleashed a wave of criticism from members of the public who claim that it’s politically propagated. Is it a fair description?
That’s a very unfair description of the Bill. First of all, all people out there, including yourself, who have been following the matters of Kampala, especially at KCCA, should appreciate the need to amend this Act.
When this law was passed in 2010 it created many offices, but when people got into offices in 2011 they started having issues among themselves. To carry out a deeper analysis of this law, the problems that are seen in the administration of the city are not caused by individuals, but by the existing Act.
According to Article 5 of the Constitution, the capital city is supposed to be administered by the central government. However, the current law stipulates that the Lord Mayor is the political head of the city yet this would be purely the role of the minister who is a representative of the central government. Those are some of the inconsistencies that we want to rectify.

The Bill intends to scrap off the election by adult suffrage of the Lord Mayor. Won’t this be tinkering with people’s constitutional rights to elect a leader of their choice?
We have since realised that if we remove the election of the Lord Mayor by adult suffrage, we shall be disenfranchising the people of Kampala of their rights and we shall explain this to the committee before this Bill is passed.

In the Bill, all political and some administrative powers will be vested in the hands of the minister. Isn’t this giving the minister too much power?
No. The administrative roles are vested in the executive arm of the authority and this is the executive director and the technical team because they are responsible for the day-to-day administration of the city.
Ours as ministers are to give policy guidelines and monitoring of the authority. Secondly, we are supposed to give political leadership for the authority because we are representing the central government. When you look at the authority, the amendment will now call it council because calling it the authority is very confusing.
We are calling it council because the political wing at City Hall is supposed to legislate. We are also creating the position of the speaker because the current law made a very big mistake that the Lord Mayor should be the speaker which at times creates confusion.

When this Bill was tabled for the first time by then Kampala minister Frank Tumwebaze, it was rejected by some legislators, voters and the civil society...
That law was never rejected, but it was tabled at a time when legislators were going in the election period and that’s why it never surfaced until recently when the Speaker directed that all Bills that are pending must be re-tabled.

KCCA executive director has already disagreed with you, arguing that you took the Bill to Parliament without her consent yet you had initially planned to engage her on what should contain in the Bill
I think that was done in error and I acknowledge the fact that the executive director wrote to me and I have since responded to the letter.
However, she too doesn’t know how Parliament operates and I don’t blame her for that because she has never been a legislator.
The Bill which I tabled in Parliament was just a resubmission of what Frank Tumwebaze had earlier tabled. KCCA as a key stakeholder had a lot of input in this Bill and I am sure they were involved.
We were guided not to repeat the same process. There is no way I was supposed to involve the executive director in republishing the Bill. When we had just been appointed, we had planned to withdraw the Bill but the Attorney General asked us not to withdraw our own Bill.

How do you expect the Lord Mayor to be accountable to the voters yet his role will be reduced to being ceremonial and hosting visitors?
We are maintaining his ceremonial status in the current law because the current law Section 11(C) stipulates that the Lord Mayor shall perform ceremonial functions and civic functions. We are relieving him of the powers to be the political head of the city because when he becomes so, the city will cease being administered by the local government and I think that is understandable.

A new subsection 6A is proposed to distinguish between functions of the council from those of the authority. Isn’t this a duplication of roles?
We are actually clarifying it because in the current law, the authority was synonymous with council.
So, council is looked at as the authority and when you look at the interpretation of the current law, council must comprise of the Lord Mayor and other councillors, which is very defective because the authority isn’t made up of the Lord Mayor and the councillors only. It’s made up of the administrative arm as well.
So we are clarifying this by saying the authority will be made up of council of the authority and the administrative arm and this is what must be done.

Let’s talk about service delivery. It is nearly a year since the President appointed you and Ms Kamya to this docket. What have you done for the people of Kampala so far?
We have done a lot and as I told you, our core duty as ministers is to give policy guidelines to the implementers. When we came to the city one year ago, business was going on as usual and we had to support the technical staff. You can actually see that there are many projects like road project which are ongoing. The reason why you don’t see us down there is because we are not supposed to implement but give policy directives.

The political wing at City Hall accuses you of frustrating their effort by allegedly refusing to approve the resolutions. Why have these resolutions never been approved?
I am so surprised about it. You see, we are all Ugandans and let’s not make political capital out of these things because we are doing it at the detriment of the future Ugandans. If I can be very sincere to you, we have never received any resolutions from council.
Ideally, when a council meeting sits and makes resolutions, it’s incumbent upon them in the next meeting to approve and confirm the minutes. When you have not confirmed minutes, how do you expect me to take action?

There is a lot of intrigue at City Hall yet the current KCCA Act stipulates the roles of each player. Who of the minister, executive director and Lord Mayor is to blame?
The defects in the current law are the major causes of these fights.

What immediate solution do you have for the problems in the city?
All these issues are before us and we are handling each problem one by one.

Lukwago’s take

Your worship, the KCCA amendment Bill 2015 that was recently tabled in Parliament seeks to streamline the roles of the players at City Hall. Why are you calling it irrelevant?
You have got to look at the spirit of that Bill. My training as a lawyer is tailored on understanding that kind of perception. Before you look at the specific clauses of a particular Bill, you have to look at the whole picture, internalise it and have a holistic interpretation of the same because that same holistic approach will drive you towards a broader spectrum.
The mastermind behind this Bill is Mr Museveni who has been on record that city politicians are populists. The Bill is, therefore, not about streamlining roles but rather targeting me, something they will not manage because it’s brought in bad faith.

What do you think ought to be amended in the Act owing to the current inconsistencies in the law?
Whether there is need or not, you have to first implement the law as it is. Right from the start, these people have not created any conducive environment for this law to be operationalised. So how do you condemn the law that you have not implemented? There could be inconsistences, but they have been manipulated by the regime.

According to the amended Section 11 of the Act, you are only relieved of being the political head of the city but the other clauses stipulate the roles you actually must play. Which other special roles do you want?
Section 11(1)e provides that the Lord Mayor shall head the authority in developing strategies and programmes for the development of the capital city. This is the most important clause because I have made a social contract with the people who entrusted me with power, but now the clause has been scrapped. In other words, they want to render the office of the Lord Mayor politically impotent.

KCCA executive director Jennifer Musisi has disagreed with the minister on grounds that the Bill was tabled without her being consulted. What do you make of the ED’s cries?
This Bill is fundamental and you can’t table it in Parliament without the input of other stakeholders. This tells you that this Bill is sponsored right from State House by one person.
A proper legislation needs the input of all stakeholders because they are the ones with the supreme authority.

A new subsection 6A is proposed to distinguish functions of the council from those of the authority. Whereas the authority shall be headed by the minister, the Lord Mayor shall head council and will be required to petition the minister on the major concerns that need attention. Do you appreciate this amendment?
For what reason? There are two concepts we have to understand; government and institution. They are trying to confuse the clauses of Article 5 of the Constitution.
It states that Kampala located in Buganda shall be administered by the local government. But Article I provides that people shall elect their leader.
The functions of the authority as spelt out in the KCCA Act are purely in the realm of governance. They don’t touch on administration. In making this amendment, you will be disfranchising the rights of the people.
In other words, the people of Kampala shall have no consent on who governs them because you are giving powers of policy formulation to the minister who isn’t elected.

There is a lot of intrigue at City Hall yet the current KCCA Act stipulates the roles of each player. Who of the minister, executive director and yourself is to blame?
I would put the blame squarely on Mr Museveni because he believes in the politics of manipulation.
He lost legitimacy in Kampala and so he wants to use underhand methods by grabbing people’s power in Kampala by using political manoeuvres and machinations to wrestle the political power from within the elected leaders of Kampala. Since he knows he can’t exercise it directly as the circumstance suit him, he then choses who to give powers.
He initially brought Mpimbaza Hashaka as RCC and Frank Tumwebaze as minister, but when they failed to crush Lukwago, that’s when he brought in Kamya who is now passing peculiar policies. I want to assure Mr Museveni that his strategy is bound to boomerang.

Some people blame you for the stalemate at City Hall because you clashed with then Kampala minister Tumwebaze, KCCA executive director Musisi and now with Kamya
Just tell me one of the five mayors or even any single councillor that I have clashed with? Previously, the council was dominated by NRM but the current council comprises majorly of the Opposition.
Have I not enjoyed a cordial relationship with these councillors? Is there no rapport? I am ready to work with whoever respects the will of the people of Kampala and to whoever isn’t politicking to entrench Mr Museveni’s rule in Kampala.

Ms Kamya has on several occasions invited you to discuss issues crippling Kampala but you have never attended any. You even snubbed a recent meeting with the Prime Minister. How do you think the city will develop if you don’t want to meet with other stakeholders?
I have told you her mission, and the kind of mission she is talking about is how to support Kisanja Hakuna Mchezo and nothing else.

But why can’t you give her the benefit of doubt and engage her...
Let her come to the authority, which is the statutorily provided for forum for policy formulation. Has she even been to the chambers here? So if she has never come to the authority, why do you want me to sit in clandestine meetings because she fears to come in open to deliberate on policy matters in the institution and she wants to sit secretly in her office?

The city is currently swallowed up in a lot of confusion. Don’t you think this embarrasses you as Lord Mayor?
For one to fully execute their mandate and to transform Kampala into a better city in the peal of Africa you basically need two things; the instruments of power and good will.
Right now, I have only the good will of the people which is a source of envy to President Museveni. The instruments of power were hijacked illegally. The executive powers which are supposed to be for the Office of the Lord Mayor have been grabbed by the minister and that’s where the problem is.

As Lord Mayor, what is the most outstanding achievement you have done for the people of Kampala in the first year?
You have to asses my achievements against the mandated vested to my office. Being the political head, it entails giving political guidelines and it’s important and people tend to ignore it and I have surely played my duty.
The other thing is the oversight role and for any for any system to give you value for money this is exactly what I have done by raising these matters time and again on matters of good governance, rule of law and accountability.
At least I have put people in charge of our funds for the city in check and as much as I am also being checked, I have also checked them. It’s the Ugandans that have achieved in all this.

If the Bill is passed into law, will you still contest as a Lord Mayor in 2021?
That matter will be premature for me to make a specific commitment because I am quite sure that we shall fight these people in their manoeuvres. Even if they succeed, we shall challenge it in court because it’s unconstitutional.

You haven’t answered my question…
Whether I will run or not, that’s a different matter because my attention and focus is on this obnoxious Bill which must be defeated.