The huge task facing new team running Kampala

Some of key areas

• Mr Lukwago’s administration has a duty to eliminate the potholes; improve traffic inter-connectivity to and through circular roads and relocate the taxi parks outside the city centre.
• Planning for the huge population of the city and provide it with services. The city, according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2009 mid-year projections, had a population of 1, 533, 600 people.
• Enforcing development plans that have often remained as blue prints.
• Ensuring that public open spaces in the city are nolonger under threat by developers.
• Preserving historical buildings, mainly located in Old Kampala. These have unique Indian architecture.
• Ensuring that wetlands are not encroached on.
• Wiping out corruption.
• Handling the issue of street vendors.

Mayor-elect Erias Lukwago will enter City Hall in May with the swagger of a political master victorious over vicious state machinery operated against him by many nemeses, including President Museveni.

With a new law revising exercise of authority in the city’s management in place, the quandary for Mr Lukwago stretch from confounding an NRM-dominated Council and an Executive Director appointed by the President to satisfying the expectation of all Kampalans of varied political hues.

Picking from Nasser Sebaggala, considered by sections of the voters as a betrayer of the common folks for hobnobbing with Mr Museveni, the high-flying constitutional lawyer faces the abrasive wind of acrimonious political debate, if not sabotage.
He could at worst survive or fall to impeachment by his councillors.

At the best of brilliance, Mr Lukwago will have to side-pack bravado, cede some justified ground and wring concession in dealing with a government despondent about his win in the first place.

Govt envy
If he turns around the grubby, shredded city, which is what the 229,325 voters who cast the ballot for him expect, the government would envy him the more as a symbol of opposition success, undermining NRM’s claim it holds the key to a livable city.
Should he fail to deliver a crime-free, prosperous and clean city, he would have leaped into a premature political grave. So what really should Mr Lukwago ‘kill’ or die for, other than fighting graft?
Daily Monitor’s Senior Reporter Tabu Butagira examines the various challenges the new team will face in the next five years;

Sanitation management

The mix of unemployed youths, and extreme poor, trooping into the city poses both security and health risks. Unable to afford decent housing or pricey plots, dwellers who can’t find accommodation invade fringe land and ecologically fragile areas such as swamps to erect shelter. Worse, people living without physical addresses are prone to committing crime, knowing they will be difficult to trace while slums such as Katanga and Wabigalo act as incubators of epidemics such as cholera due to poor sanitation.
With a city deprived of personnel and resources to enforce compliance to development standards, the poor endanger the security/lives of the rich secluded inside pristine gates of bungalows built by the largely unregulated Real Estate developers. The local planning authority can only harvest blame in such circumstance.

Public open spaces

Public open spaces in the city have been under threat by developers, ready to intimidate or arm-twist Council officials by offering them bribes. The open space near Jinja Road junction, good for residents to relax, has been sold to build the Golf Course Hotel, Uchumi and Nakumatt shopping malls while its tail-end in the Centenary Park is dotted with permanent structures contrary to the city development scheme.
Sheraton has annexed and fenced off the public open space near it as its garden, restricting access to prospective users. Veterans forcibly took over the public open space in Katanga while the Children’s Park in Kamwokya is being developed into a fuel station as city officials look the other way. Lord Mayor Lukwago will have to end the culture of impunity at the City Hall or drown.

Improved management

The reputation of KCC has been sullied by allegations of widespread corruption. The new Lord Mayor vows to stamp out the vice but he needs more than just personal courage, and more importantly building alliances, to crack the network, or else he will be mauled.
Mr Lukwago has in his waiting tray the skill to galvanise the politicians and technocrats to work together as a team. To Chief Physical Planner, Mr Charles Kyamnywa, recruiting more physical planners to add to the nine available would be problem part-solved.
“Adequate resourcing of the planning function to have real-time information to make appropriate decisions is a must,” he said, worried no control can be exercised timely when physical planners walk on foot and developers erect buildings at night.

De-congesting Kampala

The city roads, opened by colonialists and immediate post-independence governments, are narrow and pot-holed; snarling traffic; causing accidents; vehicle break-downs and lost money hours.
To minimise the grid-locks, the 14-seater taxis would have be replaced with 36 or 56-seater buses under a public-private partnership arrangement. Mr Lukwago’s administration has a duty to eliminate the potholes, improve traffic inter-connectivity to and through circular roads and relocate the taxi parks outside the city centre. There is also the option to construct a pay-per-use automated car parking to eliminate on-the-street vehicle parking and compelling every developer to provide basement parking lots. Political resistance by the Kamunye owners and corruption could, however, soil such robust reforms.

Waste Management

Officials estimate city dwellers generate some 1, 000 tonnes of waste each day. KCC only collects about half. The uncollected volume is either scattered by scavengers – both human beings searching for recyclable materials and birds – or washed by run-off water to block channels. KCC has acquired an additional six acres of land to expand Kiteezi landfill in Wakiso but experts say it would be full within four years, 12 months before expiration of Mr Lukwago’s first tenure. Besides exploring for more land, the city could learn new approaches, including energy generation from the waste.

Enforce development plans

KCC on paper has great physical development designs and architectural drawings. These blue-prints, including planned flyovers to decongest traffic at intersections, require huge financing but neither KCC nor government has a budget for implementation.
As technocrats at City Hall move from strict zoning to allowing mixed development in particular areas, lack of judicious application of rules could engender conflicting land use, according to chief Kampala physical planner, Mr Charles Kyamanywa.

Amenities

Kampala got a major facelift during the 2007 Chogm but the street lights and fresh paint coats began faltering shortly after the foreign delegates departed.
Residents now complain of muggings and robbery at dark corners. National Water and Sewerage Corporation has moved to ration water while electricity load-shedding is acute, affecting small businesses. Mr Lukwago will have to find middle-ground to work with the central government to address these challenges that impinge on welfare of city dwellers on daily basis.

Population

Most planning in Kampala is a guess work because there is no reliable population figure. The city, according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2009 mid-year projections, had a population of 1,533, 600 people. KCC officials say some 2.5 - 3 million people live in the city.
Without a proper inventory, quantity and quality of education, health, development provided by authorities could be inadequate, or misplaced.

Street vendors

Mr Lukwago’s mass support among common men and women could turn out to be his poisoned chalice when he moved to redeem the city.
Many run informal or illegal businesses, operating in front of shops whose owners are heavily taxed, and pile their merchandise on sidewalks, blocking access sometimes for fire-tenders as it happened when the down town Park Yard market besides Owino went up in flames.

Preserve historical buildings

Old Kampala stands out with its unique Indian architecture, which hungry developers could clear out any time, as planners focus on only keeping buildings of worship such as Churches and Mosques virgin. With a government hungry even to knock down the national museum, lack of restraint could see Kampala city stripped of landmark identifiers and rich culture told through varying architecture.