Flower pots: Are they a solution to Kampala’s manholes?

A few months ago, while walking on Kampala streets, your sight would be welcomed by a manhole. If you saw it by accident, you would feel terrified and definitely jump over it to avoid falling in. They would usually be around junctions, taxi parks and by the road side. For every one who walks around the city, they always expected to come across one.
It is always common to encounter these manholes while walking along Kampala Road, Nasser Road, Namirembe Road, William Street and Mutasa Kafeero Road. Cyclists too are always meticulous while carrying passengers to avoid falling into these manholes.
Ssali Lubega, 32, a boda boda cyclist and a resident of Kasubi, says one fateful night, he rammed into a big manhole that eventually damaged his motorcycle and caused him some injuries. He recollects that this experience developed in him a phobia for riding during late hours.

Manhole menace
Like Lubega, many people who walk around Kampala City have fallen victims of these manholes or have at most witnessed the menace these manholes cause. It is common to hear pedestrians accusing Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) of failure to fix these manholes.
Before KCCA embarked on the use of the potted flowers to cover city manholes, septic covers were being used but this became a challenge since they were stolen.
In 2014, during a parliamentary Public Accounts Committee meeting, KCCA Director Jennifer Musisi told MPs that there are more than 1,000 manholes.
She decried the theft of the covers because it was tiresome having to cover these openings yet thieves would carry them away the next day.

The cause
Robert Kalumba, the deputy KCCA spokesperson, says the septic covers have been a target of thieves who remove them and sell them at construction sites. As a result, many manholes remain open, putting people’s lives at risk. He adds that rarely would a day pass without a manhole cover being stolen.
Kalumba adds that it is then that the KCCA administration came up with the alternative of using potted flowers to cover the manholes.
“These flower pots are heavy and, therefore, it will be difficult for one to lift and take it away. In fact, it is cheaper than the septic covers. Ever since we embarked on this method, we have not seen them being vandalised or stolen,” Kalumba says.

Where they have been abused
Kalumba further says tending to these potted flowers is not expensive since the people working on them do not spend a lot of money and that is why KCCA has been able to continue with the idea.
He, however, notes that like the septic covers, the flower pots have been tampered with, as some people are stealing the plants in these pots, while others have turned them into rubbish pits.
Indeed, if you walked around the city, you would notice that some pots have flowers while others do not. Other flowers are broken.
“I am shocked that people have started stealing the flowers in these pots, and breaking the pots, but we shall follow up on the matter and ensure that these flower pots are protected. We are trying to avoid cases of people falling into manholes and hence losing their lives.” Kalumba says.

Maintenance
Scovia Namusoke, a gardener, who tends to the newly-placed flowers, says they mostly consider plants that are sun-resistant.
Such plants include; Lamb’s Ear, Snow-in-summer, Stone Crop and Yellow Alyssum plants, and these are bought from florists at about Shs5,000 per seedling.
She recounts that the exercise of tending these flower pots is tiresome since she is sometimes forced to walk around filling the pots with soil and thereafter plant the flowers. She says that in a day, she tends to 15-20 flower pots.
“This exercise requires commitment because we have to keep moving to each and every spot to tend to these flower pots. Also, filling in soil is tiresome and this needs a lot of time. We have to also look for appropriate flowers to plant in these pots,” says Namusoke.
With the Kampala rsidents already disabling the venture by plucking the plants, and breaking the pots, we wait to see if this new solution to city manholes proves as effective as proposed by KCCA.

THE NUMBERS

Shs5,000

the amount of money kcca spends on purchasing each flower seedling.

1,000
the number of manholes in kampala city as of 2014, all expected to have flower pots over them.

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