Can the rulers fix Kampala?

Perhaps we have to start by asking if we can fix Uganda. Yes, tough job. Kampala is the heartbeat of Uganda. Two thirds of our economy is in metropolitan Kampala. Much of what matters and is consequential takes place in Kampala. It’s our only true city worth talking about, yet utterly broken as the rest of the country, socially and politically.

Kampala is a place to behold, one with extraordinary features and unique attributes not easily found in many places around the world; life in Kampala can be infectious and alluring. But it’s also a deeply annoying city. 
I have not been to any African city, before we go too far to comparisons with so called developed countries of west or east, where so much wrong and lawlessness takes place as in Kampala. 

I have belaboured in this column the mess and menace that is the boda-boda rider plus his cousin the minibus taxi driver, the extent to which they make Kampala’s roads not just incredibly chaotic but also patently dangerous. Add to these two categories, government vehicles and private individuals who believe their cars are too big and important to play by rules. 

The total disregard of very basic rules of the road by different groups of motorists makes driving on Kampala roads simply terrifying and upsetting, especially for a first time visitor to the city. 

But why should a city, a capital at that, with pretensions to being modern and dynamic operate with such an archaic and quite frankly despicable regime of behaviour by a plurality of road users? If we cannot have basic order and discipline on the roads, why then have a Kampala Capital City Authority, a Uganda Police Force complete with a full-fledged traffic department? 

Crowding everything in Kampala is a big source of the mounting crises the city faces with the few roads inundated, no public relaxation spaces, commandeering of public land for all sorts of private developments. 

When you think about it, the Museveni government has demonstrated a shocking lack of basic imagination in public management. We are a very small country, geographically, such that spreading branches of government across the country makes perfect sense, won’t compromise operations and provision of services while avoiding making a tiny place called Kampala the centre of everything. 

The Judiciary branch including the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court should have long moved to Jinja or if necessary Mbale. The legislature would be based in Gulu while most key executive offices including the presidency would be in Entebbe. The Uganda Revenue Authority should be headquartered in Mbarara, the Bank of Uganda in Lugazi. 

It defeats logic that the rulers elected to have everything that matters all in Kampala and things just keep piling with no effort to arrest the situation or attempt a long-term strategy of changing course. Even manufacturing plants and industrial production outlets are based in Kampala! 

So this little place with no serious physical infrastructure is our sole administrative, commercial, financial and industrial headquarters. With a road network last planned and developed more than half a century ago while the population has since grown in leaps and bounds, the roads quickly fall apart in the face of sustained rains. 

Recently designed and constructed roads betray a sheer lack of imagination and thinking big with tomorrow in mind. Rather than road designs and a network that speaks to the massive traffic demands that keep mounting, we get new roads that serve the traffic needs of 20 years ago! 

Even then, for Christ’s sake, why not just install something as basic as proper and efficient street lighting on the new roads built or old ones rehabilitated? Better, why not include proper sidewalks to give the many pedestrians that walk Kampala’s roads the basic safety they need?

Can the current rulers get us out of the mess they have presided over for decades? Highly unlikely. But they can silence sceptics like me by taking very basic steps to gradually scale down the magnitude of the problems in Kampala. 

Start by ending crowding in Kampala everything that matters, especially administrative. Move the electoral commission headquarters and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, including immigration services to Nakasongola!

Most important, something must be done about flocking into Kampala in search of a livelihood by especially young Ugandans. We must invest in productivity in the countryside, create opportunities that make Kampala less attractive even it doesn’t have much to offer.

The rulers must invest in lifting Kampala from its current mediocrity and backwardness. The nation’s capital should get a budget that addresses major problems, from physical infrastructure to law enforcement. 
Without serious and sustained action, we shall remain one big joke of a small city. A visiting tourist driving to the source of the Nile will be horrified spending three hours in senseless traffic crossing an otherwise tiny city called Kampala.

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