It is now an offense not to slash the compound or paint house regularly – Gov’t

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Government has criminalized the failure to slash bushes around homes and paint houses regularly. It also an offense to liter anywhere that is not designated as a liter place.

Isaac Musumba, the Lands, Housing and Urban Development Minister, told reporters on Tuesday in Kampala that these changes are part of the Physical Planning (amendment) Act 2020, signed on January 10th by the president.

He said if one doesn’t paint their house regularly, they will receive a notice from local authorities instructing them to paint and will be arrested or fine if they fail to comply.

Musumba says those who allow grass to grow to the size of their houses will too be arrested. Also, people will be compelled to install pavers in front of their house and it is none negotiable, according to, the minister.

The Minister says every household must have a litter bin. Other than jail, people can also be fined up to Shs 2m. When journalists asked if this was implementable, Musumba said government was serious about it.

He said parish chiefs and chiefs in different localities will be put in charge to see through the observance of the new provisions. He said the new provisions are meant to ensure that the country is kept tidy.

Last year as parliament considered the amendments, Musumba told Parliament that parish chiefs were on the ground and best placed to carry out monitoring. He said district committees had failed because they are not on the ground.

Ofwono Opondo, the Government spokesperson, said these measures should be taken seriously. Uganda’s physical planning problems are bigger than slashing compound and painting houses. For instance, people continue to erect unauthorized buildings in road reserves, wetlands, and areas nit designated for residential.

Musumba agreed that there “is no capacity to enforce these physical plans and local government had failed to consider physical plans as a priority.”

“Capacity to enforce and issues of appropriate staff and capacity to process physical plans. There is also, the problem of tying permits to land registration yet majority of the developments take place on unregistered land,” he said. In 2018, government hired Israeli consultants to design the country’s national physical plan for 2018-2040.

Government says it will resolve the conflicting sectorial pressures on uses of land, which is a finite resource, as the population grows, and the country modernizes. It has not been passed up to now as of last August, government was still receiving comments from the public on the same.

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