Lately, communications and media consultant Irene Ochwo has been on the lookout when she is in Kampala city. She enjoys every ride and while she’s at it she’s noticed some areas have gotten cleaner.
She would like her city to have more pedestrian crossings and less activity, especially in shopping areas.
“When we travel to other countries, we walk around their cities more because you like to shop when you walk around freely. I would like to see more demanding city users, especially on the road, respectful of each other, less road rage and proper use of the pelican. Can you imagine, we have a pelican crossing at traffic lights, but because we have an uninformed or uneducated user of the roads, we cannot use the pelican crossing well,” Ms Ochwo adds.
Four days before taking up her official post two years ago, Mrs. Dorothy Kisaka, Executive Director of the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), made seven commitments to the city; lead from the front and be an example, serve Kampala in its diversity, accelerate service delivery to achieve the goals of the strategic plan, pursue a participatory approach to leadership, build bridges that promote peace, promote values-based leadership and be a good steward.
KCCA serves Kampala through five service directorates; Public health and environment, education and social services, physical planning, engineering and technical services, and community services and gender production, which supports the needs of young people, women and vulnerable people in the city.
To address the concerns of city dwellers such as Ms. Ochwo, Ms. Kisaka explains in their ground operations, they have tackled the decongestion of streets in downtown Kampala as part of the Smart City strategy by moving vendors to markets.
“All unplanned structures in the city that in the past have stifled licensed businesses and challenged movement while increasing petty crime are being torn down. This Smart City campaign is still ongoing and being rolled out to other divisions. We have decided, as a leadership, to address this issue in a systematic way, which involves several ongoing stakeholder engagements, including police, political and technical leaders,” she says.
According to the director of the municipal authority, the aim is to ensure that they have law and order in the street and not vendors selling their wares on every veranda.
Kampala City Mayor Erias Lukwago said the city lacked a clear identity and was divided between a multi-faceted capital with commercial, industrial and administrative elements.
“The main focus of my leadership has been on city planning. Unfortunately, few stakeholders appreciate the full importance of this critical element, why we should redesign Kampala and plan it again and start the structural plan. We had to go so far as to hire consultants from Israel and South Africa to help us conduct a study on the status of Kampala and how we can transform it into a modern city,” says Mr. Lukwago .
Kisaka says she has intentionally established systems that allow for participation and teamwork to minimize conflict at City Hall with two strong arms at KCCA, namely the Politician, who manages politics through the board, and the technical wing, which manages operations.
However, leadership is not streamlined at the town hall, which continues to hamper efforts to develop the city. The centers of power are numerous and often the mayor reads a different plan book from the executive director, the minister of Kampala and the city’s resident commissioners.
According to the Kampala State Capital Business Speech, the Mayor observes that budgetary constraints have stifled the multi-model plan of the municipal authority. In September 2020, KCCA launched the Kampala Capital Strategic Plan 2020/2021 to 2024/2025, to guide the city’s development program for the next five years.
The occasion was presided over by the Special Envoy for Special Duties in the Office of the President, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, with a commitment set out on page xiii that “by June 2025, Kampala will be an inclusive, livable city , resilient and well-planned city that offers economic opportunities.
The planned funding was estimated at $1,917 million (about 7.3 trillion shillings). The city’s strategy and business development team, as well as the National Planning Authority, said the amount is expected to double to more than 15 trillion shillings.
The cap published by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development for the financial year 2022/2023 indicates that KCCA is allocated Shs 420 billion which is miserably below the planned annual budget of Shs 1.4 trillion. Shs, in accordance with the strategic plan, which is approximately 30% of the amount required for the financial year.
“The government hasn’t allocated enough funds for planning because it doesn’t see it as a priority. We plan meals piecemeal and plan (in effect) in silos, which the experts wouldn’t advise us to do, but we are forced to do so due to the current circumstances,” says Lukwago.
He adds that they have divided Kampala into 25 zones and are focusing on drafting the Kampala Drainage Master Plan which will require around $210 million (Shs810b). So far, the authority enjoys donor support from the World Bank, which has funded the Lubigi and Nakamiro canals, Bwaise corridor, Kalerwe and flood-prone Kawempe.
“We are not satisfied with the performance of the contractors as the civil works have been delayed. But overall, we still have a long way to go. We need to rebuild the Nakivubo canal as a state-of-the-art drainage system, as well as Mayanja, Kinawataka and some other major drainage canals,” the mayor further explains.
Minister of State for Capital and Metropolitan Affairs of Kampala, Mr. Kabuye Kyofatogabye said that amid the challenges, they have managed to construct roads and rehabilitate about 20 urban roads with the help of partners development, the African Development Bank.
Ms. Kisaka says city authorities have completed the construction of more than 35 kilometers of roads. These include Lukuli Road in Makindye Division, Kisaasi Junction, Factory Lane and Nakawa, Ntinda road in Nakawa Division, John Babiiha Road/Acacia Avenue, Windsor Crescent in Kampala Central Division, Kabuusu, Kitebi, Lweza, Katale, Ngobe and Gyaviira at Rubaga Division.
She adds, “We have completed the rehabilitation of over 50 kilometers of community access roads and we continue to undertake routine maintenance of the City’s network. We have started the reconstruction of several drainage improvement projects in the city and the following ones are still in progress. »
Mr. Lukwago commended development partners such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which undertook the overview project, as well as the African Development Bank and the World Bank under the Institutional Development Project and Kampala Infrastructure (KIIDP).
However, he denounces the additional cost and the inflation of the unit cost.
Mr. Kyofatogabye says, “We did not meet our expectations for city lighting, but we are optimistic about installing more streetlights. Procurement is underway under the aegis of the French Development Agency, which is supporting us with 77 million euros (about 296 billion shillings).
He adds that 20,000 lights should be installed as a priority in markets, taxi parks, informal settlements, areas around university hostels and crime hotspots identified by the technical team of the municipal authority in collaboration with the Ugandan police. With less crime and better visibility, Kampala will move forward with a branding strategy which the mayor and Kyofatogabye say is a step in the right direction.
“Kampala does not have a clear identity at the moment. We struggled to get Kampala ranked by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which brings together groups of cities, design, learning and cultures. We are struggling to have a symbol,” observes the Lord Mayor, adding that there is work to be done on the city’s green belts, Independence Monument and Jubilee Gardens at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel.
Regarding tourism, Ms. Kisaka said the authority has promoted city tourism with financial support from the Uganda Wildlife Authority and unveiled the products of the Gorilla and Impala Bronze Wildlife Monument (10 animal sculptures) on Kimathi Avenue, Kiira Road as well. nicknamed “Wildlife Street”. This was complemented by the construction of the Kampala City Tourist Information Center at the Kampala Sheraton Hotel, a one-stop tourist center as part of efforts to position Kampala as a tourist destination.
Mr. Isaac Kuddzu, actor, says, “I want a well-planned city that doesn’t cost me time because we think time is money. The people running this town are very bright people, but we don’t have road maintenance. If we maintained our city, I believe we would have a beautiful city. This is the kind of Kampala I would like to see.
While Mr. Wilberforce David Mutete, a policeman, said, “I dream of a Kampala that gives peace of mind. When we are on our roads, we go crazy starting from the smallest to the highest. We failed to understand who is running Kampala. I want a city without boda bodas. I want to live in a safe and well-lit city.
Kampala is the commercial and political capital of Uganda with a resident population of 1.8 million people and a day transit population of 3.5 million people. It originally had seven hills, but the number has since increased. It sits approximately 4,000 feet above sea level.
