Sacked KCCA deputy ED David Luyimbazi.
The now sacked deputy executive director of the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Mr David Luyimbazi, has denied claims that as top leaders they slept on the job and are to blame for the Kiteezi dumpsite disaster.
Mr Luyimbazi, who President Museveni sacked alongside KCCA Executive Director Dorothy Kisaka, and Public Health Director Daniel Okello, told reporters at City Hall yesterday that the management was aware of the crisis at Kiteezi landfill but could not do anything because of lack of finances.
Mr Luyimbazi also said the July 2 warnings over Kiteezi by Dr Okello were too late for them to avert the situation.
“We did everything in our power to make sure that things don’t happen that way but as fate had it, somebody had to pay the price and we are the ones. To decommission Kiteezi, you needed resources, to stop dumping there, you need resources [and] to find a new dumping site you need resources. All those three factors were unavailable,” he said.
President Museveni dismissed the trio after findings by the Inspector General of Government pinned them on negligence that led to the collapse of the landfill. The August 10 catastrophe that buried houses, roads and fields, killed 35 people, injured 18 and as well destroyed properties worth millions.
Ms Munira Ali, the spokesperson of the Inspectorate, told Daily Monitor on Tuesday that Ms Kisaka as the accounting officer of KCCA ignored the closure notice from the national environmental agency Nema and went ahead to commit KCCA into a contractual deal with private concessionaires to dump waste at Kiteezi landfill instead of Katikolo dumpsite in Mukono District.
The report, which said Mr Luyimbazi is a qualified civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience, pinned him for failing to take an immediate remedy that would have averted the catastrophe when he received the communication from Dr Okello.
But Mr Luyimbazi said the June 29 warnings by Dr Okello were late for them to avert the situation.
“If you are on a path of destruction for nine years, the warning of 30 days will not save you. The landfill was supposed to be decommissioned in 2015 [but] due to lack of funding it continued operating,” he said.
“The warnings were made but the landfill was on a journey of imminent collapse ... at the end of the day, this is a subject of adjudication and the truth will come out whether the individuals that came in later are culpable or the situation that kept on building up was as a result of their negligence,” he added.
Mr Luyimbazi was also faulted for letting private concessionaires dump waste in the landfill even after knowing that Nema had stopped KCCA from operating it.
Mr Museveni, according to the September 24 press statement released by State House, sacked the three individuals due to significant evidence of the severe oversight and negligence they exhibited when they received warnings before the catastrophe befell.
He also called upon the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and other crime management agencies to thoroughly investigate the matter further, focusing on the angle of criminal negligence associated with the catastrophic event.
On these claims, Mr Luyimbazi said: “As a public servant, I am ready to answer questions and I will go to any investigating agency once summoned.”
