Kampala’s Dastur Street to be renamed after Ssebagala

The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) council has resolved to rename Dastur Street after former Mayor Al-Haj Nasser Ntege Ssebagala.

The resolution was made during a special session called to pay tribute to the fallen politician at City Hall, Kampala. 

Ssebagala passed on last Saturday at International Hospital Kampala. Before his death, Ssebagala had collapsed in a bathroom at his home in Munyonyo and was rushed to IHK with abdominal complications.

The session chaired by KCCA Speaker Abubakar Kawalya said that for his good deeds, Ssebagala should be remembered for generations to come. The suggestion was to have either Kimathi Road or Dastur Street renamed after the former Mayor and after a vote, 16 councilors voted in support of the proposal to rename Dastur Street. 

The road measuring 0.32 kilometres starts from the Kampala Road junction between Cairo International Bank and Church House and crosses through Nakasero Market to Nakasero Mosque. It had been named after Jal Fakirji Dastur, an Asian who first came to Uganda in 1923, to work in a cotton gin in Kawempe. 

He was the first person from the Asian community to join the Democratic Party when it was opened to Asians and later settled in Canada when Idi Amin expelled Asians in 1972. Before the expulsion of Asians, Dastur had served as a councilor in the Kampala Municipal Council, and as a Member of Kampala District Education Board. He was a founding member of the Tenants Association and a Member of the Rent Control Board, among several other responsibilities. 

Earlier, in today’s sitting, the KCCA Secretary for Physical Planning and Engineering Kennedy Okello had suggested that the choosing and renaming any of the roads should be conducted together with other arrangements in the same line yet to be conducted by the inter-ministerial committee.

But the councilors rejected this proposal saying that a precedent was already set when the council renamed Nakivubo mews after the late Former Mayor John Ssebaana Kizito. The State Minister for Kampala Benny Namugwanya was called in to guide on the matter and gave a green light to the councilors.

The decision will now be presented before the inter-ministerial committee chaired by the Prime Minister to gazzette the new road name.