Rubaga residents, Pastor Kayanja in row over noise

Residents of Aggrey Zone A Village and Kayanja LCII Zone in Rubaga Division, Kampala are battling Pastor Robert Kayanja Ministries and his Miracle Centre Cathedral over noise pollution.
The Church in Rubaga is located in a residential area, which also has several students’ hostels and institutions of learning, including Nakasero Secondary School, St Lawrence University and the Kampala campuses of Nkumba University and Uganda Christian University (UCU).
The residents accuse the church of operating in violation of the National Environment Noise Standards and Control Regulations, 2003, which puts the maximum permissible noise levels for places of worship in residential areas at 60 decibels during day and 40 decibels at night.

Several residents who talked to Saturday Monitor indicated that their woes started last year when Mr Kayanja’s church introduced the 77 Days of Glory (DOGS), a session that lasts more than two months per year, with loud gospel music and overnight prayers going for three to five times a week.
On July 11, 2017 the residents wrote to the director in-charge of Public Health and Environment at Kampala City Council Authority and copied in the National Environment Authority (Nema) and the police, saying that “the DOGS campaign that has gone on for many months makes noise using loud speakers every day, in the evening and throughout the night”.
“This is a residential area…whose residents are no longer able to sleep. Our appeal to the Miracle Centre leadership has fallen on deaf ears. This is to petition you to use your power and authority to bring Miracle Centre to order,” their petition reads in part.

Despite the petition and physical approaches to the police, the residents said nothing has so far been done.
“Everyone knows that the people in the church make a lot of noise, but those people are untouchable,” Ms Patience Baiguma Besigye told Saturday Monitor on Thursday.
The officer in-charge of Kayanja Zone Police, Ms Flavia Nsimenta, indicated that the matter was beyond her powers.
“I do not command myself. Talk to my boss, the District Police Commander (DPC) of Old Kampala,” she said.
Efforts to talk to the DPC, Mr Charles Nsaba, were futile as his known mobile phone number was off.
Matters, the residents say, are exacerbated by the numbers that often turn up for the prayer sessions. “Because the hundreds of people who participate can’t fit into the church building, the services take place in a tent outside,” a resident said.
The acting Director of Health and Environment at KCCA, Dr Daniel Okello, said he was not conversant with the matter and needed time to study the case. However, his predecessor, Dr David Seruka, said he tried to address the matter before he left KCCA.

“By the time I left we had some engagements with the leadership of the church and they asked for time to redesign and make it sound-proof,” he said.
We were unable to speak to Pastor Kayanja but one of his aides, who only identified himself as Loran, said the pastor was in Israel on the invitation of Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Nyetanyahu.
He, however, said he was not aware of the standoff between the residents and the church.