Parliament should re-visit KCCA law
Kampala City has in its more than 100 years of existence expanded from the original seven hills of Nakasero, Namirembe, Lubaga, Mulago, Kibuli, Kololo and Makerere to anything upward of 20 hills. A city which was planned to accommodate 300,000 people has now a population of more than three million, which increases to five million during the day.
The Kampala Metropolis is also the wealthiest part of Uganda, generating slightly more than 70 per cent of the GDP of the country. This expansion of Kampala has unfortunately not translated into planned growth. In fact, there is no planning these days to write home about.
The neat little city, originally created by the colonialist as the commercial capital of Uganda (Entebbe was the seat of government), has been swallowed up by ugly concoctions built without any regard for new roads, public transport, recreational parks and other amenities such as sewerage systems.
There is no credible planning authority in the city. The road network has not expanded much from the 1930s and yet the population density has multiplied 10-fold. Kampala is actually one huge slum, except for a few “islands of decorum” such as Nakasero, Kololo and parts of Bugolobi and Naguru.
In other ‘upscale’ areas such as Muyenga, Bunga, Buziga, Munyonyo, etc, one is accosted by elegant mansions built along narrow and twisting roads which can carry only one car at a time. Bunga Hill, of all these new hills, appears better planned, thanks to the vision of the main landlord in the area, the late Charles Kasajja Stokes, who surveyed and demarcated his domain with access roads.
He even took the trouble to obtain separate land titles for the roads, which he kept in his names to ensure that nobody ever encroaches on the road reserves. Most other city landlords believed that provision of enough space for roads takes away valuable land.
I believe that proper planning died in the early 1970s and what followed thereafter was ‘adhocism’, which persists to date, even in the city centre. Gone are the beautiful city buses (including double deckers called ‘kabandole’), which used to ply the streets and stopped at designated bus stops.
Now we have boda bodas and matatu (taxis), which stop anywhere. The bus terminal downtown has been replaced with a shopping mall!
Kampala’s problems are further aggravated by its confused politics, which has created numerous power centres.
The Kampala Capital City Authority Act of 2010 introduced a complicated situation where power was divided between the elected lord mayor, the Minister for Kampala and the Executive Director of KCCA. Following the enactment of the KCCA Act, I wrote in this paper that it would be impossible for an elected lord mayor, as the political head of the city, to co-exist with a minister for the capital city, who was also a political boss and an executive director, who was given almost unlimited powers.
The problem has been compounded by the fact that an Opposition candidate, Erias Lukwago, won elections for the post of Lord Mayor with overwhelming majorities both in 2011 and 2016 elections.
In 2015, the KCCA Amendment Bill to the KCCA Act was presented to Parliament by the then Minister for Kampala Capital City, Mr Frank Tumwebaze, with the intent of trimming the powers of the elected lord mayor and reducing him to a ceremonial figure head, but this was shelved. The new Minister for Kampala, Beti Kamya, has now re-tabled the 2015 KCCA Amendment Bill.
Now that Parliament has the opportunity to amend the KCCA Act, it should not settle for cosmetic changes, but overhaul the entire Act and remove all these ambiguities. Most cities world over are run by elected mayors, who are the chief executives.
They also have elected councillors, who together with the mayors, constitute the city governments. These are assisted by civil servants who handle the technical stuff and the day-to-day running of the city.
Incidentally, the title ‘Lord Mayor’ is a misnomer where the mayor is elected by universal suffrage. Lord mayors are ceremonial and apolitical. Parliament should expunge this title from the Act.
Also the position of minister in charge of Kampala Capital City is “surplus to requirements” and should be expunged. Unless Parliament gives us a sensible Act, Kampala will remain despicable.
Mr Naggaga is an economist, administrator
and retired ambassador. [email protected]
