Author: Moses Khisa. PHOTO/FILE
The immediate former Executive Director (ED) of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Ms Dorothy Kisaka, is in prison, so is her erstwhile deputy. In the meantime, there is a rush to grab the job of ED of KCCA.
A long list of applicants appeared on X earlier in the week. Three names standout. First, the current acting ED Frank Rusa, heretofore director for legal affairs at KCCA and former head of the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD), a platform that brought together political parties represented in Parliament.
The two other names are well-known on Uganda’s political bloc and corporate circuit. Mr Robert Kabushenga, served for over a decade as the chief executive officer of the government-owned Vision Group media company.
The other candidate, Mr Richard Byarugaba, was a long-serving managing director of Uganda’s largest financial institution and workers’ pension fund, the National Social Security Fund. Both Mr Kabushenga and Mr Byarugaba had kind of retired, or perhaps not quite, into what has become quite standard and predictable – farming.
Since he was forced out of his position at Vision Group in the immediate aftermath of the 2021 elections, Mr Kabushenga underwent some Saul-to-Paul transformation, taking on a curious critical stance in public discourse.
Through X, he has spoken out forcefully against the glaring wrongs and excesses of government. For someone who actively helped entrench Museveni’s rulership, having him singing from the same hymn book as the forces of change has been much welcome.
Arguably, precisely because of this, he is unlikely to get the job of KCCA ED.On his part, Mr Byarugaba, not unlike Kabushenga’s controversial departure, left the position of MD of the NSSF rather unceremoniously – literally forced out on account of having reached retirement age.
For someone managing a retirement fund, the fight to stay-on past retirement age, including petitioning court, was rather bizarre, to say the least.
Other than the low-key position of heading IPOD and recent short stint as a Director at KCCA, not much is known about Mr Rusa’s credentials and professional accomplishments. But those who know him personally and professionally speak highly of him. Under ideal circumstances, he is perhaps the right candidate for the job, same with Kabushenga and Byarugaba.
The crux of the matter is that however qualified and competent, no executive director can fix Kampala’s dire situation that has built up over time. The problems of Kampala are not managerial as to be easily fixed by a competent chief executive. The core problem is fundamentally political and can only be cured through a political process. I return to this in a moment.
Today, Kampala is one hell of a mess. Keeps worsening. It is a city afflicted by intractable social problems whose physical infrastructure is thin and overwhelmed. The chaos on Kampala’s roads are breath-taking, especially with the lawlessness of passenger motorcycles (boda-bodas) and minibus commuter taxis.
I have not been to any city worth its name, let alone the national capital, with the road mayhem and sheer disorder that has become so routinised and normalised in Kampala. Strangely, most Ugandans seem unbothered or resigned to the chaos of especially boda-bodas. Some disingenuous commentators and regime functionaries are wont to assign blame to Erias Lukwago, the popularly elected Kampala Lord Mayor.
There is no question that Mr Lukwago, an otherwise well-meaning and patriotic public servant, easily caves to the populism of the street and fails to lead on some critical public issues.
But there is a limit to what Lukwago can do, however much he tried. From the time he was first elected in 2011, the central government effectively took over the fiscal and administrative power over Kampala. The city is under the direct administrative and technocratic control of the president, two ministers in charge of Kampala, to boot!
On his part, Mr Museveni, Uganda’s president for nearly 40 years, just cannot live with the fact that Kampala voters cannot vote him or his party even if the alternative were a cow! He got Kampala firmly under his control to direct its affairs, yet the city remains political hostility to him even as it descends.
It is inconceivable that Kampala can be rescued from the current decay and dysfunction unless there is radical political change in Uganda’s politics. Kampala is a microcosm of Uganda with the good and bad, the ugly and beautiful of Uganda.
It has the most concentration of human resources and productive capacity. It is where much of Uganda’s economic output is concentrated. By some estimated, at least two-thirds of our Gross National Product (GDP) – the total goods and services produced in a year – is in the Kampala metropolitan area. This alone would mean that the central government grants Kampala privileged status in national budgeting and priorities for long-term national development.
At any rate, unless there is a rapture in our politics, a reset and a new possibility to reengineer the country as whole on a totally different ideological and programmatic mission, no brilliant ED will fix Kampala in the short term.
