Prime
Ignorance is not bliss
Managing cities and urban growth across the globe is one of the principal challenges of the 21st Century that has seen cities develop into centres of urban poverty, conflict and dissatisfaction to the elites and the underprivileged yet no underlying factor has been given to explain the status quo.
However, various localities are critically ill with lack of proper information flow to aid formation of a coherent urban fabric as explained in the story of Tinka, a poor girl who went abroad to work while sending her savings to a friend who bought her a plot of land in a wetland.
Tinkasimire left Kwabo village in 2002. The decision to come to Kampala was dictated by the death of her guardian. She had lived as an underprivileged child with no access to education and other basic necessities.
She sold some farm produce and used the money to pay for a ride at the back of a truck to Kampala. In Kampala, she went on to do odd jobs. After a year and a half, she used the Shs2 million she had saved up to pay to a company that facilitated her travel to Saudi Arabia and got employment as housemaid there. While there, she would send her savings back home to her friend Morgana who she later asked to buy her a plot of land to construct small rental houses using the savings.
Morgana bought her a piece of land in Ndeeba. Tinka kept on working, this time to save up enough for construction. When she finally returned with enough money to start construction, she was shocked to discover that Morgana had unknowingly bought land in a wetland. She had bought the land without carrying out any research about it.
After much thought, Tinka decided to go on with the construction after all, many structures had cropped up from different developers. She also could not afford to lose her savings. But where would this leave the natural environment. Such places must be devoid of permanent structures regardless of their economic gain since climate change is driving the entire world into disasters.
Many people fall victim to such scams because they lack information. The National Physical Planning Board should ensure that information regarding the development of various urban centres in the country propagates downwards to all citizens equally to reduce the number of people buying plots in wetlands, road reserves, and buffers without proper guidance.
Rahim Lubadde,
