Lukwago asks city divisions to create market committees

Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago has asked city divisions to convene special council meetings to pass resolutions on the establishment of new market leadership, saying there is an administrative vacuum since President Museveni disbanded the old committees.

While meeting city division leaders in Kampala yesterday, Mr Lukwago urged them to act since the KCCA Act gives them the mandate to constitute market leadership committees.

“It is time to implement the legal resume in the management of markets. As KCCA through council resolutions, we need to put in place interim leadership committees to manage these markets, we should not allow government officials or any other authority to impose leaders into these markets again without going through the councils,” Mr Lukwago said.

He added: “It defeats logic that Mr Museveni managed to assent to the Computer Misuse Amendment Act immediately but hesitated to assent to the Markets Bill 2021, which targets at solving mess in our markets.”

The Bill gives market vendors the mandate to elect their leaders on a three-years renewable term.

On November 17, President Museveni issued a directive disbanding all the market leadership committees in the city. The directive placed the governance of markets under KCCA.

The President argued that the market leaders were exploiting vendors.

The mayor for Kampala Central, Mr Salim Uhuru, said the President would assent to the Markets Bill in a month’s time.

“Recently, we met with the President, we also reminded him of the Markets Bill 2021, he ordered his secretary, Mr Kenneth Omona, to prepare it for assenting,” Mr Uhuru said.

The speaker for KCCA Council, Ms Zahara Luyirika, accused the government of ignoring council resolutions to create an impression that Opposition leaders in the city are not doing enough to provide services to their electorate.

“It was interesting how market leaders like Ms Suzan Kushaba of Owino market were evicted by the same forces that were guarding them earlier. But our council had passed a resolution to disband all market leadership committees because our surveys had already revealed how they exploited the vendors,” Ms Luyirika said.

Last week, the KCCA executive director, Ms Dorothy Kisakka, said she would soon unveil the new leadership committees.

Ms Kisakka added that whereas vendors would be allowed to form their committees, they would not be part of the markets administration.