Why Kampala potholes reveal our broken politics

For the uninitiated, the indefatigable scholar, Dr Jimmy Ssentongo, started a Twitter-based campaign of displaying images of the utterly disastrous state of roads in Kampala. Dr Ssentongo and his ‘followers’ on the social media site, Twitter, posted images of roads in despair and disrepair around Kampala.

This campaign became a hit. And for good reasons. Kampala by far has the worst roads of any national capital I have been to across the African continent. It is not just that the road network in Kampala is irredeemably lousy, it is also that this same lousy network for our only true city is in total shambles.

Without a doubt, Kampala is the world’s capital city of potholed roads! If you drive through the part of the city called the ‘industrial area’, you find that not a single street there is without potholes. In fact most of the roads in that part of the city are totally worn out. They were perhaps last paved more than 30 years ago!

Yet Kampala’s industrial area is one of the most important business hubs with many factories, warehouses, wholesale stores and a range of big businesses that are headquartered there including the main petroleum companies, our topmost taxpayers.

If the old revolutionary mantra of ‘no taxation without representation’ meant anything, then Kampala’s industrial area should be up there with the best roads because it should be well represented, thus have the best public goods and services since it is a main catchment area for state revenue. But not in a convoluted Uganda!

Anyone who has driven on Kampala’s roads over the past years knows the nightmare of fighting to dodge potholes, the endemic traffic gridlocks and the incurably undisciplined motorists who just compound the situation.

It is physically and emotionally exhausting to drive in Kampala. You have to spare a thought for compatriots who must deal with this every single day, commuting to work or running pertinent business matters.

The pothole exhibition sought to rally citizens’ power and voice to compel authorities to take action. The outpouring was phenomenal. Some of the images posted on Twitter were simply breath-taking.

Placing on display for all to see, including the powerful who perhaps are driven around in ways and vehicles that shield them from the reality of the average person, was an overwhelming success.

The authorities in charge of the city got the message of outrage from the public. The rulers in charge of the state must have seen citizens’ anger. Yet their reaction just underlined why Kampala is in such a mess, to start with.

Apparently, among some Members of Parliament, they did not know the extent of the decay and collapse of Kampala’s roads. Incredible.  For the rulers at the top, the ruler-in-chief, was reported to have responded by ordering the Ministry of Finance to immediately release Shs6 billion, yes, Shs6 billion, equivalent of about $1.6 million dollars! I know nothing about road construction costings but my wild guess is that this is the money you need to do just one kilometre of a serious dual-carriage road!

Better still, that amount is a tiny fraction of what the ruler’s State House gets in supplementary budgets, not to say anything about the actual planned budget, every year. It is all just ludicrous and an insult. It should make Kampalans even angrier.  If the rulers were serious about tackling road collapse in Kampala, they would treat it as an emergency and table in Parliament a specific supplementary budget of, say, Shs1 trillion to overhaul, revamp and expand Kampala’s road infrastructure.

After all, the rulers spend much more and regularly seek supplementary budget approvals from Parliament, in higher figures, for less critical programmes and activities. They should do the same for a city that accounts for more than two-thirds of Uganda’s national wealth, our Gross Domestic Product.

So why can’t they do the basics of getting the requisite funding in place and get down ruggedly to ensure Kampala is a decent capital with a reasonable road network, proper order without the nonsense of boda-bodas and taxis that are a total nuisance?  At any rate, the rulers don’t need popular support in Kampala to secure their stay in power. The Kampala voter is largely inconsequential in national elections. It is the Kampala street protestor who poses a threat.

So why not fix Kampala even if it means alienating the voter who has always voted against the current rulers anyway? Could it be that our rulers are just plain incompetent and unable to run a modern city? A question to which I shall turn next.

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