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Recently, in an added twist to the tale, however, the street vendors have become pawns in the tussle between President Yoweri Museveni to retake the city and his political opponents, led by Lukwago.
Lukwago defiant
As Lord Mayor, Lukwago is the popularly elected political head of KCCA. Serving his second term, Lukwago belongs to the political opposition and has had numerous run-ins with President Museveni. He was locked out of office for most of his first 4-year term and denied a salary. But, to Museveni’s chagrin, he recently got reelected with a rousing 80% of the vote.
Lukwago owes his popularity to allying with the city’s low income community; the street hawkers, market vendors, and boda boda motorbike taxi riders. Museveni has courted the same groups but, unlike Lukwago, is encumbered by the duty to deliver an orderly city. As a result, Museveni smiles and barks at vendors, depending on his political agenda of the moment.
In the latest move, he appointed a new Minister for Kampala, Beti Kamya, who on Oct. 19 ordered vendors off Kampala streets. Kamya’s directive followed a March meeting between traders and KCCA which resolved to have vendors evicted under the exercise dubbed ‘restoration of trade order and sanity’. The move appeared to confirm what many have speculated about; that Museveni intends to use Kamya, an opposition politician with unbridled ambitions and eagerness to please, to do the `dirty work’ in Kampala.
Previously, the push to remove vendors from the city streets has been led by KCCA ED Jennifer Musisi. Appointed to the post soon after the 2011 elections, Musisi’s assignment was to restore order and clean up the city. She knocked down buildings in road reserves and unlicensed kiosks, closed dirty eateries, enforced noise pollution bans, cleared the garbage, and battled the city vehicle jam. When Lord Mayor Lukwago played populist antics and sided with vendors, Musisi locked him out of office. In almost no time, she had stamped her brand of firm astute management and steely resolve on the city. She had kicked out the vendors.
Then the general elections of 2016 came and Museveni’s NRM party was badly trounced in Kampala. In populist fashion, Museveni blamed the poor performance on Musisi “style of work”. Suddenly Musisi was reduced from implementing tough policies to dancing in city carnivals with vendors throwing jibes at her clipped wings.
Political analysts like Makerere University professor Mwambustya Ndebesa blame Museveni’s populist politics for the return of disorder in the city. According to Ndebesa, Museveni has allowed vendors, traders, taxi operators, and boda boda riders to “capture the state” in exchange for hopefully voting for him in 2021.
“As long as we continue buying political support through populism, Kampala will remain a battle ground between President Museveni and Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago,” said Ndebesa.
But in an earlier interview with The Independent, Lukwago defended his siding with vendors.
“I campaigned on a platform of social justice and equity,” he said, “Much as some people misinterpreted it as a Common Man’s agenda, I believe in equitable development not that skewed to a few people”.
Lukwago has laid out a six point plan of action, which included gazetting some streets for vendors to ply their trade.
It is, therefore, not by accident that a day after Kamya issued the directive for vendors to leave city streets; Lukwago scoffed at it and reminded her that as the head of the elected KCCA Council, he holds the legal mandate and “will exercise the peoples will on how the city is governed”.
“We do not work on directives and Kampala leaders were not elected to take directives in that manner,” he said.
On Oct. 24, he led the KCCA Council to reverse Kamya’s directive. The reversal is unlikely to go well with Musisi and Kamya who are required to implement it. Many observers expect them to ignore it and continue kicking vendors off the streets – until Museveni intervenes again, orders the vendors back, and the cycle continues.
To break the cycle, Ndebesa says it is upon the Lord Mayor and Museveni to choose to be statesmen for the good of Kampala.
“Politicians look at the next elections while statesmen look at the next generation and the latter covers pro-developmental agenda,” Ndebesa says.
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editor@independent.co.ug
