Author: Mr Karoli Ssemogerere is an Attorney-at-Law and an Advocate.
The knives quickly came out, out went Kampala Executive Director, her deputy and Director of Public Health on account of a report by the Inspector General of Government. The collapse of Uganda’s biggest waste landfill officially claimed 35 lives.
The situation was exacerbated by the end of life of a 30-year landfill and no succession plan in place. Residents of Ddundu in Mukono North had politely exercised through influential residents, that polite but audible refrain, NIMBY, “Not in My Backyard.”
The Minister of Kampala in one of her explanations also stated that the tariff from methane gas generated from waste was too high, and the Electricity Regulatory Authority was reluctant to approve it.
Uganda officially generates more power than it consumes, an outcome of a liberal licensing regime, and the shortfall the national electricity transmitter, Uganda Electricity Transmission Company has met in evacuating power from dams to the national grid. This idle capacity is also a secondary symptom of lack of effective purchasing power for electricity that many Ugandans face.
In the same Ministry, the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, a parallel program to promote subsidized cooking gas, a move undertaken by Ghana more than 15 years ago does not require power connections.
Cooking with electricity is deemed expensive, and unreliable power supply makes it even more expensive where families especially urban ones have done away with the traditional kitchen fed on charcoal, twigs, firewood and other combustibles.
Kiteezi at another level dictated several policy failures. First was the failure to eliminate or sharply curtail the production, sale, and distribution of polythene kaveera and other plastics.
Second is the market reality that requires bottlers of water and soft drinks to distribute their goods in plastic bottles. Nothing of the sort in Rwanda or even Kenya where paper bags are promoted has happened in Uganda. Plastic waste has caused long term harm to water sources, road pavements, arable soil and garden where it very slowly decomposes into soil and enters the water stream.
Second, the Kiteezi landfill had an incentive to survive. An annual budgetary allocation of Shs4 billion to manage the waste similar to what managers use to maintain “urban-feeder roads” where existing land use makes dusty roads a health and safety hazard kept the landfill going without anyone seriously batting an eyelid.
Warnings from KCCA political leadership or even a report by KCCA’s own public health department kept the mountain of garbage growing.Kiteezi basically exposed another facet of Uganda’s public life.
Image makers would never have Kiteezi on a “scenic route” to show visitors around. Kampala-Entebbe Expressway well lit at night does not have a Kiteezi exit on its route. You wouldn’t even find a single road sign labelling, garbage dump ahead a necessary safety sign for motorists who find themselves sandwiched behind garbage trucks.
What is now left of Kiteezi is probably years of litigation. The value of internal whistleblower reports like that of the Director of Public Health is now gone. The whistleblower himself was sacked in the purge. In the tears that flowed, no legislation has come forth to address this debacle from happening. Nema the environmental agency possibly should consider hiring expertise in this area. What did the Environmental Impact Assessment Report of Kiteezi contain, and what licences would they require.
In terms of pollution, local legislation focuses on water quality mostly, compounds from water. Uganda in short order needs clean air legislation, that looks at some of the toxic gases and compounds that Kiteezi was freely producing without any form of measurement whatsoever.
By the time the gases caught up with the solid waste, it was too late, it was mayhem everywhere, the urban landfill, filled its contents and covered human beings, their animals and houses. It was a horror that should never happen again.
Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law and an Advocate.
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