For a functioning Kampala, KCCA should be disbanded

In a press release dated September 24, President Museveni summarily dismissed three senior leaders of Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA) – the executive director (ED), her deputy, and the authority's director of public health.

In a country where leaders are seldom held accountable, let alone for 'mere' negligence, the dismissal of not just one but three senior officials at KCCA was the big news it deserved to be.

Whether this is the new standard for public officials appointed by the President going forward remains to be seen, what is clear for now is the fact that KCCA has not lived up to the hype that was sold to Ugandans during its creation.

In the language of those who drink liquor, one may now say KCCA is all foam and no beer. When it was created in 2011, the justification was that KCCA was needed to improve governance, enhance service delivery, and promote sustainable development in Kampala.

Thirteen years later, none of these has materialised. Instead, Kampala is now a shadow of its former self. Today, it is hard to distinguish the roads in Uganda's capital city from those in some jerkwater towns in Uganda. When it rains, the roads in Kampala are flooded and impassable, when it shines the dust from some Kampala roads is a major health hazard with clouds of dust visible in the air.

Yet, roads are not the only thing the city has failed to manage; the city floods and runs with sewage after a few minutes of drizzle, the schools and health centres have gone to the dogs, and – tragically – rubbish from the city buried tens of Ugandans with valid fears that six weeks since it happened, some Ugandans are possibly still buried under the rubbish heaps that collapsed in Kiteezi!

Yet, KCCA has not only failed to live up to its billing but Kampala’s City Hall also has been turned into a cockpit where the Lord Mayor – elected by universal adult suffrage as per the KCCA Act – and the executive director appointed by the President spend considerable time engaging in political battles of supremacy to the detriment of Kampala residents.

These fights are mostly a result of the fact that the KCCA Act overlaps the power and responsibility of the ED and Lord Mayor with the end result that it is not so easy to tell, by merely looking at the law, where the powers of either of them start and end.

There are not many – if any – serious cities around the world governed by the kind of confusion that KCCA has to operate with. In the end, the one thing the KCCA Act 2010 that created KCCA did was to take away the power from people who live and work in Kampala to decide how and by who they want to be governed.

Even after hundreds of thousands of them turn up and vote for a Lord Mayor, whoever they elect must share power with – and in many instances remain subordinate to – an ED appointed by the President!

This gives the President unchecked power to sabotage whoever the people of Kampala elect – even for political reasons. In fact, in a video posted 10 years ago but still accessible on NTV's YouTube channel, the President accused the residents of Kampala of committing suicide by electing Opposition leaders.

Specifically, he mentions Mr Erias Lukwago, the man who has held the Lord Mayoral seat since KCCA’s creation. In the same video, he gives out what may be the actual reason for creating KCCA and the ED's office – ‘watering down the mayor’s position’ and leaving him with only 'chains and padlock'.

Unfortunately, the structure also means the people of Kampala are unable to tell if the Lord Mayor they elect is failing due to individual incompetence – to vote them out – or systemic brick walls that would fail anyone else.

In the end, Kampala – the face of Uganda – looks like a city recovering from a major civil war; not the fight of an ED and Lord Mayor over decisions on who can fly out without permission and who can!

The writer us a lawyer with a keen interest in politics, human rights and governance. [email protected]