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Experts blame politicians for poor urban planning
A boy crosses a drainage channel in Katanga slum, Kampala, on August 21, 2020. The newly created city authorities have been urged to avoid planning mistakes that created slums in Uganda’s capital city. PHOTO | ERIC DOMINIC BUKENYA
What you need to know:
- Mr Batanda said they have written to the Judiciary to revive Mbale City court to expeditiously prosecute offenders of the set urban development plans.
The National Physical Planning Board (NPPB) has said most development plans in cities and municipalities do not match those drawn and approved by the technocrats due to interference by politicians.
During a consultative meeting on physical planning held in Kampala yesterday, the physical planners revealed that politicians often ignore architectural plans.
However, the NPPB chairperson, Ms Amanda Ngabirano, castigated some physical planners for allegedly conniving with developers to violate the standard procedures on construction and urban development.
“Some technocrats are part of the illegal implementation of plans of some buildings without proper plans,” Ms Ngabirano said.
“There are some things that didn’t go right such as land use management and development. There was too much freedom on the allocation and use of land. That is why you are seeing Kampala looking disorganised and embarrassing,” she added.
The meeting was purposed to guide clerks of the newly approved cities on how to avoid repeat of mistakes that were committed during the development of Kampala, and strictly adhere to the technical development plans.
Last year, 10 of the 15 cities approved by Parliament came into effect. They are Arua, Mbarara, Mbale, Fort Portal, Jinja, Gulu, Soroti, Hoima, Lira and Masaka.
The others that will become operational in the next financial year are Entebbe, Moroto, Nakasongola, Kabale and Wakiso.
The clerks of the new cities attributed failure to enforce the set standard development plans to shortage of funds and lack of enough human resource.
“We lack appropriate tools and machinery to implement some of the plans we approve. For instance, we don’t have enough trucks to collect garbage throughout the city and the dumping site needs to be improved by acquiring another site,” the Mbale City clerk, Mr Paul Batanda, said.
Mr Batanda said they have written to the Judiciary to revive Mbale City court to expeditiously prosecute offenders of the set urban development plans.
Ms Ngabirano said: “We are using two approaches; the corrective approach, which might call for some radical decisions, and the preventive approach, which requires them to have detailed physical development plans.”
She revealed that the government may be forced to demolish structures that do not meet minimum standards. Among those that may be affected are fuel stations that were erected in non-approved areas.
“This is about the economy and public health and safety. We want to make money at the expense of lives. We are not going to allow this to happen. For those that happened already, if it is for the public good, we must take a step and recommend even radical decisions such as demolition even without compensation,” Ms Ngabirano said.
Government has demanded that the new cities expeditiously implement what was termed as the ‘quick wins’ ,which include painting buildings and ‘greening’ the cities.
