Museveni's invitation to city leaders revives old KCCA fights

Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago (L) and Kampala Minister Beti Kamya

What you need to know:

  • Mr Lukwago has also said what is required for Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to work well is not for its leaders to meet with the President, but for every player to stick to what they are supposed to do.
  • Whenever Mr Lukwago meets leaders from Kampala who Ms Kamya is convincing to meet with Museveni, sources say he cites the example of KCCA councillors of the last term who “the voters punished” for siding with Museveni against Lukwago.

On Wednesday, Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago offered an unassuming response to a request by Kampala minister Beti Kamya.

“It is factually incorrect to state that the Lord Mayor has ever participated in any meeting in regard to the issues of Kisanja hakuna mchezo,” Lukwago’s assistant Aidah Nakuya wrote in response to a letter by Samuel Baker Emiku, the undersecretary in Ms Kamya’s office.

“Be that as it may, His Worship the Lord Mayor shall not be in position to accompany the minister to the said meeting,” Ms Nakuya added.

The meeting in question was supposed to happen yesterday, between President Museveni, Kamya, Lukwago, the five division mayors, and other leaders in Kampala.

Mr Lukwago’s response came moments after Ms Kamya’s letter, written on the same day.
The minister had indicated that the leaders of Kampala would discuss with the President “the strategy and plan that has been developed to deliver the capital city to a middle income city status based on the 2016 presidential directives contained in ‘Kisanja hakuna mchezo’.”

Kisanja hakuna mchezo is the Swahili phrase President Museveni has adopted for the five-year term he started in May, loosely meaning that during this term it won’t be business as usual. For this to happen, certain corrective actions have to be taken.

By virtue of being Lord Mayor, Mr Lukwago, though an Opposition politician, is part of the government and would ordinarily be expected to embrace the implementation of the programmes of the government of the day.

Meeting with the President would appear to be in sync with this thinking. And Mr Lukwago’s seeming refusal to play to this script, of course, is an issue that his critics are ever so keen to jump on.

Asked why he declined the minister’s invitation to meet with the President, Mr Lukwago said he was not obliged to give a reason.

Bribery allegations
In the past, however, Mr Lukwago has accused President Museveni of turning State House into “a clearing house for bribes”, saying a mere appearance in a photo with the President at the palace would be enough for Ugandans to consider that one has been bribed.
Mr Lukwago, the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change party and Dr Kizza Besigye have consistently declined suggestions of meetings with the President, insisting that certain conditions must first be met for such a meeting to happen.

Mr Lukwago has also said what is required for Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to work well is not for its leaders to meet with the President, but for every player to stick to what they are supposed to do.

This thinking, however, does not auger well with Ms Kamya. Immediately she took over as minister, Ms Kamya embarked on plans to arrange a meeting between KCCA leaders and the President.
Over the past week, she and Mr Lukwago have been in and out of frantic meetings with Kampala leaders, especially division mayors. Ms Kamya was attempting to convince them to attend the meeting with the President, while Mr Lukwago was dissuading them from attending it.

In her letter quoted above, Ms Kamya refers to meetings with Kampala leaders with the President. Successive meetings took place in her office at the new President’s Office building near Parliament, we understand, but Mr Lukwago did not attend any of them despite being invited.

The Lord Mayor feels that

Museveni redraws plan to win over Kampala

With the ruling party effectively wiped off the face of Kampala in that election, Museveni set out to renew his strategy towards Kampala. In the new strategy, however, the traditional NRM leaders in Kampala were left to play no influential role.

facing the city. In an earlier interview, Mr Lukwago cited her public pledge, in the presence of President Museveni, that Museveni would poll 80 per cent of the votes in Kampala in 2021 as evidence that Kamya is “a campaign agent” for the President.

To Mr Lukwago, this feeds into President Museveni’s vow during a press conference after he was declared winner of the presidential election on February 20, 2016, that he will wipe out the Opposition during these five years.

More intricacies
Whenever Mr Lukwago meets leaders from Kampala who Ms Kamya is convincing to meet with Museveni, sources say he cites the example of KCCA councillors of the last term who “the voters punished” for siding with Museveni against Lukwago.

In the game of high intrigue that led to Lukwago’s botched impeachment last term, most councillors, including those elected on the Opposition ticket, chose Museveni’s side. Almost all of them were kicked out at the last election.

It was then widely believed that they had been bribed to vote to impeach the Lord Mayor, although they in effect ended up impeaching the Authority council itself because after then they did not sit again for over two years until their term expired.
This line has already won Mr Lukwago some early victories against Kamya and the government side.

An attempt to get councillors to meet with Mr Museveni, for instance, failed. Mr Lukwago edged Ms Kamya and Kampala Central MP Muhammad Nsereko on the control of the forum for Kampala MPs.

Nsereko had wanted to lead the forum, but Lukwago’s team led by Makindye West MP Allan Ssewannyana, Rubaga North’s Moses Kasibante and Kawempe South’s Mubarak Munyagwa defeated the plot, instead installing Kawempe North MP Latif Ssebaggala.

Mr Lukwago was last week in court to stand surety for Nakawa MP Michael Kabaziguruka, who is accused of treason. Mr Kabaziguruka edged Mr Nsereko to the position of secretary to the Kampala City parliamentary forum- a victory for the Lukwago team.

Sources say with Mr Lukwago fully in charge of the parliamentary forum, Ms Kamya turned to the division mayors and their councils in her search for influence, hence the ongoing plan to have them meet with the President. The planned meeting excludes MPs from Kampala.

But was the short time Ms Kamya provided for the would-be attendees to make up their minds meant to deny them the chance to carry out any consultations. Within one day, until 1pm the day after the letter was written on Wednesday, the would-be attendees were supposed to confirm attendance.

Ms Kamya on Friday personally sent out messages to division councillors to notify them that the meeting would not happen on Saturday (yesterday) as earlier planned, but on October 26.

Asked whether she would attend the meeting, Ms Nabbosa Ssebuggwawo, the Rubaga Division mayor, said she had to consult. She is a deputy president in FDC, which in the past has stopped its councillors from meeting with President Museveni, saying it is the duty of top party leaders to decide how they relate with the other parties.

But if the meetings between the minister in charge of Kampala and elected leaders within Kampala have proved complicated, it is because almost nothing can be taken at face value anymore.

Take the ongoing quarrel between Mr Kamya and Mr Lukwago over street vendors. The minister issued an order about a week ago that the vendors must vacate the streets or else they would be evicted.

A week after that order was issued, the minister called journalists again on Saturday and repeated her directive. In-between her orders,

Lukwago tells off Kamya over eviction of vendors

The minister’s proclamations followed threats by shop owners, citing high taxes and rent overheads, said the practice of vendors staging in front of their shops and selling merchandise at lower costs amounted to unfair competition

arguing for gazetting places where vendors can ply their trade.

Mr Charles Musoke Sserunjogi, the mayor for the Central Division, said more streets would be gazetted for that purpose.

As all these exchanges were taking place, KCCA withdrew all its law enforcement officers from the streets, giving vendors a free ride. KCCA spokesperson Peter Kaujju says the enforcement officers have been withdrawn to go for further training.

A close aide to Mr Lukwago has a different explanation. He says the enforcement officers were withdrawn, without his knowledge in order to “deliberately create chaos”.

He says people who are not necessarily vendors were then poured on to the streets of downtown Kampala to flood their merchandise and even block access to certain shops.

After this, a group of people who say they are shopkeepers stormed Mr Lukwago’s office to report that their businesses were in ruin because of vendors, yet the vendors do not pay licence fees and other dues that shop owners incur. The group asked Lukwago to order the eviction of vendors from the streets. The authorities at KCCA said all they were waiting for was Lukwago’s order. Lukwago did not issue the order to evict vendors.

The source says Mr Lukwago “knows” this was planned and aimed at eliciting from him an order to evict vendors, which his opponents currently led by Ms Kamya would pounce on to de-campaign him amongst Kampala’s underprivileged, who are Lukwago’s core constituency.