Why Kiteezi landfill electricity potential hasn’t been exploited

Kampala is a city where many residents, seemingly indifferent, treat their surroundings as a dumping ground. Garbage is discarded from cars, into water channels, vegetation, and across compounds without a second thought. The organic foods its residents gleefully consume also contribute to the 2,500 tonnes of waste generated each day.

In the 1980s, the government recognised the severity of this issue and hastily sought land to manage the growing waste problem. The solution? A dumping site in Kiteezi in Wakiso District. The site now has more than 50 dead bodies trapped beneath its surrounding debris under layers of mud and rotting garbage after last Saturday’s debacle.

More than 50 survivors have found refuge with the Red Cross and the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) near the site of the incident.

According to Lillian Aber, the junior Relief, Disaster Preparedness, and Refugees minister, more than 1,000 people across three villages have been affected. Despite the scale of the disaster, responsibility remains unclaimed. City officials, the Ministry of Health, the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), and even the President’s office have all refused to take responsibility. Authorities uniformly claim they lacked the funds to address the risk.

Missed opportunities

Residents in the area were jolted awake last Saturday at around 7.30 am by a sudden eruption and a cascade of garbage whose force caused cracks in the ground.

This is not the first time the landfill’s challenges have been brought to light. In 2008, a KCCA impact assessment report revealed that the landfill was overwhelmed, handling 500 tonnes of garbage per day—far beyond its capacity. 

But instead of finding a long-term solution, KCCA merely purchased an additional six acres of land to extend the landfill’s life by two more years. Even President Museveni issued Executive Order Number 2 of 2023 last year, with three directives aimed at clearing the city’s garbage within a one-year deadline. However, the managers of the 32-acre Kiteezi landfill failed to comply with that directive.

Despite this, researchers continued to sound the alarm about the landfill’s fragile state. Government records, including the Uganda Gazette, reveal that by 2009, the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema) continued to issue licences allowing institutions to deposit solid waste there. Throughout 2010, waste collection from schools, markets, shopping malls, estates, residential areas, and institutions of higher learning continued.

All this garbage was dumped at the 32-acre landfill.

A 2013 study by two Makerere University students, Dickness Kakitahi and Bernard Wasswa, revealed that while the landfill was somewhat stable, it became hazardous during the rainy season due to increasing waste volumes that compromised the slope. Other studies highlighted rising toxicity and a looming disaster.

In 2020, Nema reminded KCCA that it had refused to renew the landfill’s licence in 2013 and advised against further waste disposal at Kiteezi, Parliament records show. By 2022, Nema highlighted that the treatment plant was not fully operational, effluent was being discharged directly into water streams, and there was a lack of regular monitoring of both the effluent and the surrounding environment.

Mr David Luyimbazi, the deputy executive director of KCCA, acknowledged that while the authority was aware of the landfill’s capacity issues, financial constraints hampered efforts to find alternatives. This was largely because nearly Shs6 billion would be needed to establish a new dumping site in Mukono District, a figure that almost doubles its annual budget from the Finance ministry.

Curious choices

John Teira also has findings close to what The Monitor managed to get. The Bugabula County North lawmaker told Parliament this past week that he has presented three potential investors (who he didn’t name) to KCCA for projects to generate electricity from the Kiteezi landfill for the national grid. Despite these efforts, Mr Teira said KCCA has consistently dismissed these proposals after each feasibility study. 

“I’m a legal service provider in this country and we have presented these people to KCCA formally, but they have continuously rejected anyone who comes to develop Kiteezi landfill. I don’t know what the intention and the motivation is,” he disclosed.

Had these projects been approved, they could have complemented other private ventures, such as Kakira Biomass Power plant, which contributes 52MW to the national grid at eight cents per kilowatt-hour. 

The reason for this situation remains unclear. KCCA’s executive director Dorothy Kisaka said: “There is a process involved in getting permits from the Electricity Regulatory Authority, ERA.” That process, she further revealed, “can take nine to 12 months to be completed.”

It’s also claimed that some investors have been deterred by the government’s offer of five US cents per kilowatt-hour, which is meant to align with the production costs of other projects such as Karuma hydropower dam, priced at 4.7 US cents per kilowatt-hour, “which is too low for investors in these type of projects to recoup substantial returns,” a source divulged.

“Some of those claims are factual. However, the regulator revises tariffs on an annual basis. If this year they were given five US cents and an investor can make a case that they can’t make business sense if they don’t have like seven US cents, for example, per KwH, that negotiation is listened to. And the following year, when the electricity regulatory authority is reviewing tariffs, they are taken into consideration,” another highly-placed source in the Energy ministry disclosed.

“Currently, no one generates electricity from waste. So if they are the first ones, it is only ideal to listen to them, consider them, and give them a licence. After this, they go and negotiate a power purchase agreement with a transmission company and then go to their lenders for financing; they add in equity and then come and start production,” our source added.

Arrested development 

Research data collected by Sunday Monitor shows that all the aforementioned companies were unable to convince ERA that they had a raw material—garbage—needed to produce energy.

This was principally because they didn’t get KCCA’s approval. Our sources claimed that since KCCA harbours plans of establishing its own plant, “it doesn’t want to watch private investors scoop cash from its own material.”

Ms Minsa Kabanda, the minister for KCCA and Metropolitan Areas, said the Authority submitted funding requests through ministerial policy statements in 2018, 2019, and 2020 to Parliament for cash for a waste management plant but they have all been unsuccessful.

“We have continued to submit these requests every financial year, including 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. But have [continuously] been put under ‘unfunded priorities.’ In 2019/2020, the parliamentary committee recommended an allocation of Shs20 billion to KCCA to initiate the proposed interventions, with the funding gap spread over several financial years. However, this recommendation was not fulfilled,” she said.

KCCA has always looked at a figure around Shs30 billion and Shs60 billion yet it is perennially given a Shs4.1 billion disbursement per financial year. This, we understand, has been primarily spent on excavators for levelling garbage and its treatment.

KCCA asserts that most of the garbage is biodegradable and could be converted into manure, while plastics could be incinerated to generate steam for energy. 

However, the challenge lies in KCCA’s desire to handle these processes independently, despite its financial disputes.

Some lawmakers have suggested preventive measures, such as waste collection be implemented at the local government level using locally-generated resources, as many environmentalists advocate. Mr Lawrence Biyika, an environmentalist and the Chairman of the Parliamentary Forum on Climate Change, said Uganda is losing about Shs1 trillion annually to waste-related issues. 

The aforesaid figure inches to Shs4.4 trillion, according to some waste management reports from non-profit organisations like the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). This includes the high expense of treating diseases linked to waste, as well as lost revenue from overlooked recycling and up-cycling opportunities.

“We have methane and other gases at our disposal that could be harnessed for energy. We have encouraged investors to convert waste into energy, but progress is too slow,” Mr Biyika noted, adding that several projects, including those funded by the World Bank for waste management in Kampala, have not been effectively utilised. 

“Tracking these projects reveals mismanagement of funds, contributing to the current waste crisis. The West is increasingly blocking our funding channels as a result. The Kiteezi landfill has the potential to generate 6.5MW of electricity,” he noted.

Uganda already has several waste management guidelines in place, including healthcare waste management, European Union waste management standards, sector strategies for organic waste, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) from Unicef. The primary challenge lies in enforcing these guidelines due to a lack of supporting legislation. And yet, Uganda’s municipalities have been struggling financially due to their heavy reliance on central government support that has left them with minimal local revenues to manage solid waste efficiently.

Way forward

According to Lukia Isanga Nakadama, the third deputy prime minister, the cabinet will meet next week under the direction of President Museveni to review a report regarding what transpired at Kiteezi prior to this chaos. The report will then be forwarded to Parliament for discussion.

Meanwhile, Mr Kabanda said KCCA has engaged with investors who are willing to assist in setting up a waste management plant.

“Our primary concern is decommissioning the landfill. We have identified two investors interested in collaborating with us. Although the initial tariffs were high, we believe that by working together with the Cabinet and Parliament, we can reach a resolution,” she said.

Mr Kiryowa Kiwanuka, the country’s Attorney General, stated that the President and Cabinet have approved a waste management project at Kiteezi, with an energy tariff of 10 US cents per KwH, supported by a government subsidy of 2 US cents. 

“We have reviewed this project, and for such initiatives, we are allowing a total tariff of 12 cents, with the government covering two cents. We hope that with reductions from other electric power generators, this energy mix will be effective,” he said.

But this is debatable. Experts from the country’s Energy ministry, who did not want to be named, said “The cheapest generational cost of electricity that we have had in the country is 13 megawatts of a power plant, and that’s the tunnel plant on the shores of Lake Albert that is owned by a Ugandan who is also a Norwegian.”

Adding of the Norwegian: “It’s the cheapest because, for him, he is the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor for the plant, and its cost is $1.8 million per megawatt. It’s the cheapest because the cost of EPC was significantly slashed.”

They also proceeded to note: “The rest of the plants have EPC contractors that are different companies that are brought on by the project sponsor, and their cost average is about $2.4 million and $2.6 million per MegaWatt.

Electricity is usually determined by the inputs. That is why you see hydro is usually cheaper because the government does not sell water to anyone. And also, that’s why you also see that sugarcane companies produce cheap electricity because it’s a by-product of their main product, sugar. If the city council does not price the garbage very highly and adjudicates it as its equity contribution to the investors, the price of electric power per unit would become very low. So you find this monetary requirement for KCCA to put up its plant very huge. Besides, it doesn’t have the expertise.”

The Ministry of Disaster Preparedness has asserted that it was exploring modern solutions, including incineration, recycling, and generating power from waste, to find sustainable alternatives.

Waste-to-power projects

Acknowledging that the situation at Kiteezi was unsustainable, KCCA acquired 135 acres of land in Ddundu, Mukono, with plans to establish a waste recycling plant. This move aimed to alleviate the pressure on the Kiteezi landfill.

Currently, Kampala generates 2,500 tonnes of garbage daily, with all of it ending up at Kiteezi. After last Saturday’s debacle, KCCA rerouted waste to the Bukolwa landfill in Katabi Town Council. This was only achieved after intense negotiations with local officials and the mayor, who were concerned about the risk of another disaster and potential water contamination, given the landfill’s proximity to a swamp near Lake Victoria.

An investigation by Sunday Monitor has revealed that numerous developers have expressed interest in waste-to-power projects, aiming to utilise waste generated in the greater Kampala area but their proposals have consistently been met with resistance and rejection from City Hall.

SESAMI Energetics applied for a permit to develop a waste-to-energy power plant in Lubya in 2010. Despite a ground-breaking ceremony, the project was hindered by KCCA’s denial of waste access.

Infinitum Energy expressed interest in developing a 60MW waste-to-energy power plant in Kampala in 2021. The company failed to secure waste access rights of garbage from KCCA despite signing an MoU with the Energy ministry. Kampala and its industries use up an estimated 60MW.

Elsewhere, Hitachi Zosen Inova from Zurich, Switzerland, showed interest in developing power from waste in May 2021, but the project was not permitted access to waste. Others were denied permits to access garbage in Mukono District.

NLS Waste Power Plant Limited plans to develop a 35MW waste-to-energy power plant in Mbalala, Mukono Municipality. Feasibility studies are advanced, and if access to waste is availed to them, they could construct a power plant as early as 2026.

VIDA Energy Uganda Limited aims to develop a 20MW waste-to-energy power project in Ddundu, Mukono. The company has expressed interest to the power regulator and, if granted access to the waste, could develop a power plant.

KCCA hasn’t explained why these entities were denied permits and yet data shows that their interest emerged when City Hall received several alerts from Nema, the World Bank and other environmental researchers.