Prime
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF KAMPALA LORD MAYOR: His day is full of emergency calls
Ssalongo Elias Lukwago
I am Ssalongo Elias Lukwago, the Lord Mayor of Kampala City and a lawyer with Lukwago and company advocates. My day starts at 5:30am with a word of prayer. Then at 6am, I listen to news. I do some exercise before breakfast then prepare for work. Although I have to be at office by 8am, sometimes I fail because of the transition period that we are in now; there are many emergence calls that require my response. There are times when I receive calls requesting me to visit a certain scene, it could be people demonstrating over bad roads, high taxi fares and fire break-outs among others.
At the office, the first thing I do is to interact with my colleagues in the chambers, then check on the day’s programme. While in office, I meet people like councilors and mayors from different divisions. Others may include people who come with all sorts of domestic problems and need my intervention.
Sometimes I am holding meetings with various stake holders from different companies or holding press briefings with journalists on different issues. In the afternoons, I am signing documents. There is no specific time allocated for me to leave office because of the volume of assignments.
Always before stepping out, I have to make sure that the agenda for the following day is set so as to give me a proper work plan. I also have to carry out supervision of the work done by different departments to find out how they are progressing with work and in case of challenges we find a way forward.
One of the challenges I encounter is building KCCA, an institution with new individuals including the executive director Ms Jennifer Musisi and the entire team. Finding ways of relating with one another in the execution of our duties and juggling both field and office work is another challenge with the little funds allocated to my office.
