By Mutabazi Sam Stewart
Development of a country is not cheap. It doesn’t come easy. It is very costly because, to achieve it various factors must be harmonized, proper planning executed, hard decisions and choices made, resources mobilized, masses rallied, negotiations held, sacrifices made, and commitment from leaders guaranteed. These are just a few of the many issues to be considered for countries to be transformed economically. President Yoweri Museveni has been advocating for the transformation of Uganda from a backward economy to a developed one that is self-sustaining since 1986. The country is yet to achieve this feat. The major hindrance to this is lack of clearly defined sequential planning to determine the priorities of our country and the execution of those plans with maximum clarity.
Development takes many trends but what defines it in its best form is the economic well-being of the majority of citizens. The other equally important characteristic of development is orderliness and systematic execution of various functions and activities within the entire state or country. The reason why I am raising all these issues is because of the challenges that Uganda currently faces. There are many but the common one that defines our ineptness is the way we continue to live in a completely disorganized city of Kampala. Our capital city arguably remains one of the most muddled insular towns in the world today. Many people have written about this but less is being done to rectify the situation before it gets out of hand.
Kampala is simply not planned. People build anywhere, anyhow and anytime. It is only in Kampala that you find roads that end (closes). It is common in most suburbs to follow a road which normally starts as a normal public way but finally stops at some one’s residence. KCC does not regularly monitor structure that are being put up. People build within road reserves; roads are narrow and winding instead of being straight. In plain language, development of structures in Kampala is simply misguided without any centralized planning and coordinating system. The few law enforcement officers who are supposed to look out for illegal structures in the city are always compromised by a few bribes hence they allow fake buildings, some without plans to go on. All this would not be a big problem if Kampala was a big city. As it is today, Kampala district is the smallest district in Uganda measuring only 195 sq km yet it has the highest population of over 2.5 million people
Of late there was a proposal by government to take over the management of the city through the Kampala Capital City Bill that proposes among others the appointment of an Executive Director to mange the city and the expansion of its boundaries to incorporate parts of Wakiso, and Mukono districts. Some people have come out to vehemently oppose this otherwise good move thus in the process have vulgarized an excellent idea that would make our capital city become an admirable cosmopolitan metropolis that it is meant to be. The opponents of this idea fail to realise that Kampala in its current form will never be developed to modern standards.
The city needs good wide roads, better leisure parks, well protected green belts, enough parking space for the ever increasing traffic, bigger shopping malls and many more things that define a city. Other people have argued that since the central government has failed to deliver in other areas, they don’t think it can positively mange and transform Kampala city either. I am among those who think that the current government is very incompetent in terms of management. This is evident infrastructure including hospitals, schools and other government installations that have been run down over the years. However, at the same time, I am of the view that the state in which our city is presently can not be any worse. I can’t fathom Kampala in a worse scenario than what it is now. Entrusting our city to Al Hajji Nasser Ntege Sebaggala was one of the worst blunders the voters of Kampala ever made. Conceding and yielding to Buganda’s demands not to expand the boundaries of the city is to condemn the city to perpetual mismanagement, an action that would lead Kampala to become a befuddled slum. I would rather we support the central government move to administer the city after all we have less to lose in the present circumstances.
