Sebaggala’s tenure of broken promises

If Kampala Mayor Nasser Ntege Sebaggala needed a half-term report on his administration’s performance from the “common man”, whose interests he pledged to serve when he took the oath of office on May 15, 2006, city dwellers could not have delivered it in more striking fashion than they did on February 26, 2009.

Mr Sebaggala was visiting the victims of the February 25 fire that gutted merchandise at Nakivubo Park Yard near St. Balikuddembe (Owino) Market when angry vendors hurled insults, shoes, stones, and everything else they could land their hands on, at the mayor.

Even in the heat of the rage built up by the market inferno, the fact could not have been lost on Mr Sebaggala and his team that the vendors had picked on their mayor for special rough treatment. In any case, other senior local politicians and leaders who went to commiserate with the fire victims, received heroes’ welcomes at the market.
The unprecedented attack on Mr Sebaggala, a streetwise politician who rose to fame in the late 1990s due to his close links with ordinary city dwellers and was nicknamed Seya (Comrade) by his adoring supporters, was in fact the culmination of pent up anger that had been building up during the first three years of the mayor’s second stint at City Hall.

Mayor no more
“He is not the mayor I campaigned for. He is now money driven and has done nothing to help the poor man improve his income,” said Ms Florence Nakkonde, a trader in Owino Market and one of several vendors complaining about the Kampala City Council (KCC)-backed moves to sell off city markets to tycoons rather than associations belonging to traders.

Ms Nakkonde’s views bear similarity to those of Kampala Central MP Erias Lukwago, who shares the same Democratic Party (DP) political umbilical cord with Mr Sebaggala although both are currently estranged from the party.

“Sebaggala pledged to front the common man’s interests but his actions don’t show that he is doing anything of that kind. He is feasting on the common man’s interest by selling of their markets to the rich,” Mr Lukwago told Daily Monitor.

At half term, the vendors and Mr Lukwago are not the only ones complaining. With city residents asking why – as per his promises – Mr Sebaggala had not replaced taxis with buses by June 2007 or even today, revamped mobile medical services by June 2007, created cyclist lanes in 50 per cent of the roads by June 2007, or created 15,000 jobs by December 2008, the Mayor is a cornered man.

Yet, after beating Peter Sematimba and four other candidates to the mayoral seat with 53 per cent of the vote in February 2006, Mr Ssebagala prepared a comprehensive five-year strategic plan for Kampala – complete with a timeline indicating when each of the 10 goals and 51 objectives that his administration set out to focus its energies on would be achieved.

In outlining his goals and objectives, Mr Sebaggala, quickly won goodwill from many quarters, including President Museveni.

Own resources
In an interview with Daily Monitor, which was published on May 16, 2006, shortly before he was sworn in, Mr Sebaggala said, “I am looking forward to see that I have a city, which sustains itself rather than depends on the government.”

Mr Sebaggala says the challenges his administration has faced in running the city is partly a result of the problems they inherited from the previous administration of John Ssebaana Kizito, which was ironically under the stewardship of DP politicians.
In a city that was fast turning into a battleground between police and city traders over the disputed ownership of city markets, Mr Sebaggala says his administration can claim credit for helping nip the riots in the bud by contracting vendors to manage their respective markets.

Commenting on his failure to decongest the city by replacing taxis with buses, Mr Sebaggala said the project has not been implemented to the satisfaction of city residents because government lacks funds to invest in the importation of buses.

But critics argue that Mr Sebaggala has contributed to his own rough ride by alienating himself from Parliamentarians representing Kampala, like Mr Lukwago, Mike Mabikke (Makindye West), and Kampala Woman MP Nabilah Ssempala. The wrangles mean the Mayor does not enjoy sufficient backing in Parliament.

Mr Sebaggala admitted that the strained relationship between him and MPs from Kampala has dragged his administration down the sewer, literally. But for former Kampala Town Clerk, Mr Gordon Mwesigye, the operations and service delivery at KCC has been derailed by failure to develop structures.