How Kisaka plans to change the face of Kampala City

On the office wall is a portrait of a woman, facing right and on the face of it pleased with everyone who walks into her presence. This woman embodies empowerment and in her, lives the will to nurture communities into prosperity. She believes in the multifaceted nature of humans and in building synergies that deliver growth.

The office in question is the seat of the executive director of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA). It is here that Dorothy Kisaka, who took an oath on July 30, 2020, will fast track the city’s development. When President Museveni came knocking on her door with an appointment, Kisaka was left in astonishment.  “It appeared too gigantic a role to run a capital city.  But it was an exciting opportunity to live the things I have taught others about,” she says.

Unless she has other engagements, she is always in office by 7:30am. Her days are filled with appointments, phone calls, meetings including those with the Lord Mayor of Kampala, KCCA management team, ministers, markets, businesspeople and signing all manner of documents.

After three years of this routine, the expectation is to see a functional and well planned city inclusive of five divisions and 99 parishes. But Kisaka inherited a city with a long litany of complaints

Some of the issues that need urgent attention are traffic jam, pollution, poor garbage disposal, underfunding, flooding, slums, poor public transport, poverty, bad publicity and endless power struggles and bickering within Kampala’s power centres.

“We have a weekly arrangement where we meet with the Lord Mayor’s cabinet and the management team. The structure will minimise conflicts. We talk through proposals before they are implemented and councillors monitor our work.” 

Kisaka says she will not allow conflicts to escalate between the Lord Mayor’s office and KCCA. “We shall intentionally nip conflict in the bud. We subsribe to various political persuasions and you cannot avoid the clash of the politics. But we must find avenues of dealing and co-existing in the same space,”  she says.

She admits the challenge is enormous and her strategy is to deal with one thing at a time, together with her team. She has plans of changing people’s mindset on garbage disposal to make it a collective responsibility for all city dwellers.

Her first goal in office as a new director was to verify staff positions at KCCA. She has since conducted asset verification, launched a five-year strategic plan and will now spend the next two months repairing Kampala’s potholed roads.

“We are working on a programme to overhaul the entire road system in Kampala. There is need for funding so we can get new roads and government is working on that,” Kisaka says. 

She has an uphill task of dealing with the informal sector and bringing order to the city.  This comes at the heels of  bad publicity where KCCA’s enforcement team in the past has had a long standoff with vendors.

Kisaka does not condone street vending but challenges her team to be humane. “Be considerate while enforcing laws. There is no need to pour a basin of mangoes of a woman who is trying to fend for her family,” she says. 

She says there are plans to enforce continuous public awareness for vendors as well as overhaul the market system. Kisaka has a special place for women and she wants a forum that will enable those in the city to share ideas under the gender directorate. Be it fashion, catering or art, Kisaka wants women to be champions in Kampala’s 849 villages and have a collective voice where they brainstorm ideas to improve their communities.

She plans to introduce the parish model of developing the city, where every parish would be administered to ensure there is family cohesion, urban farming, functional savings and cooperative groups, education centres, health facilities, proper revenue collection, youth and women units as well as legal services.  If she can get leaders and communities to buy her idea, she is optimistic that funding such a model will be the least of the authority’s challenges.

“If we can work through this model to ensure there is good training in these areas and they are established, where communities in 99 parishes can receive all these services, I will be happy to leave KCCA,” Kisaka says.

Before joining KCCA, Kisaka had a lot on her plate. She served as secretary and fund administrator for the National Covid-19 response fund, senior presidential advisor on politics and governance as well as deputy head of the Prime Minister’s delivery unity, where she supervised service delivery in health, education and infrastructure.

Kisaka joined public service as commissioner at the Electoral Commission in 2010. Issues of governance have always been at the core of her values and so is the yearning to take part in the development of nations.

“My father was an MP and he died mysteriously. People thought I would step in his shoes but that was not my cup of tea. I wanted to participate in a more non-political role,” Kisaka says.

All the roles she has held in the past prepared her for the current job. She has learnt that working with people requires patience. That executing a national task requires being aware of both political and technical needs of the job and the different power centres as opposed to working alone.

Kisaka’s beginnings

Born to the Late Mr and Mrs Bulamu in Kiyunga village, in Iganga District,her earlier studies were in Kamonkoli Girls’ School Mbale and Gayaza High School. As a child, her desire was to become a teacher. Back in the day, teachers were a mirror of nobility and professionalism. She also drew inspiration from both her parents, who were teachers.

In more ways than one, she believes she has realised this dream. But at Makerere University, where she enrolled for her first degree, Kisaka, graduated as a lawyer.

In 1988, Kisaka got her first job as a legal assistant at a law firm earning Shs5,500 (about Shs800,000 today). She spent years researching and drafting legal documents for the senior counsel. 

When Ntume Nyanzi, her boss at the law firm passed away in a tragic accident in 1992, Kisaka paid off the goodwill and run the firm as her own. It was a challenging transition for the 29-year-old Kisaka then. Her clients described her as too young to run a law firm but she believed in her abilities.

She was also pregnant with her second child then. While at university, her heart led her to Peter Kisaka.

“We knew each other for five years before we got married. As soon as I started working, we got married and had our first child a year later,” she narrates.

She was running the law firm, juggling career and family but eventually the couple made a big decision.

“It was very demanding and as a family, we thought it was best that I tend to the children and survive on my husband’s salary. I would stay home and run our family businesses. I homeschooled my children and after five years, I resumed work at the law firm,” says Kisaka.

After 31 years of marriage, the Kisakas have three boys and one daughter and throughout her career, family has always been top on her priority list.

Kisaka believes marriage is a partnership and credits her husband for not stifling her career goals. “My husband gave me a chance to thrive as a career woman and I do the same for him.”

Being a stay-at-home mother turned out to be rewarding for Kisaka. She read more books, did community work,  tailored clothes and baked cakes.

Her endeavours have left her with a school that equips professionals with leadership tools based on spiritual teachings. She measures success in the value her church community derives from her participation.  “I cannot divorce myself from spirituality. I seeks guidance from God on how to do things. I have the routine of going to church, attending Bible study, prayer and fasting,” Kisaka says.

Whereas she has had success with career and family, her femininity creeps in at times. “The challenges of our physiology such as having to stay home to breastfeed are real. If a child is sick, it is a mother to fix that,” she says.

 Her mother taught her values of hardwork, compassion and excellence. Her father, her elder brother, Pastor Nicholas Wafula, the regional consultant for Development Associates International and Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda are some of the people she credits for shaping her career. 

She believes women’s nurturing character makes them unique leaders but they must work with others. “I do not have to morph into a man. It is demeaning for a man to tell me to be a man because I am not. I bring the beauty of femininity into the workspace,” she says.

Her current load is a huge one and it has a way of curtailing her “me time”. When she finds the time, Kisaka loves to walk, to scream over chess, Uno, four in a row and any other game played on a board.

She also loves to cook and teach others how to prepare tasty dishes. She reads lots of books on leadership.  “Vision keeps me ahead, my relationship with God, family and my community that holds me accountable keep me motivated. This is not about me. People after me will stand on higher ground when they come to KCCA.”