The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Why the arrest and detention of the leaders of our city is a cynical political gimmick
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | The arrest and detention of the top executives of KCCA for the disaster that happened at Kitezi landfill is sad. I know for a fact that President Yoweri Museveni did not order this arrest. However, I am conscious of the fact that for political reasons, government needed to appease public anger by punishing someone for the tragedy. Therefore, this is not an act of police activism gone too far. Rather, it is a strategic move by police to please the boss by imagining his political needs and second guessing his desires.
But I find it unfair for the three officials to be used as scapegoats in a disaster that was allowed to happen by the top leadership of our country particularly the president, parliament, the minister of finance and the secretary to the treasury. I say this despite my respect for the people who hold these offices. KCCA has spent nine years trying to secure money to decommission Kitezi to no avail. Every year since 2015, KCCA have presented a budget to decommission Kiteezi and every year it has been returned as an “unfunded priority.” What then should they have done?
In my discussions with police, they said KCCA should then have made public announcements asking people to leave the area. Makes some sense too. And KCCA did this. On July 8th, KCCA wrote to the Kiteezi Landfill Salvagers Community Based Organization (KLSCBO) and copied this letter to the local police stations and the local councils. This organization comprised people who use the landfill to recover usable materials like jerricans, bottles etc. The letter refers to meetings held with the organization at Kiteezi on May 20th and July 2nd, warning members and residents of the dangers in the area. The letter warns the community against working in areas that are risky. I have videos of these meetings. No wonder out of the 35 people who died only three were from KLSCBO. What more did police want? Interestingly, the director of public health at KCCA who made all these warnings is in jail as well with his former bosses.
The letter says there were cracks and waste slides, blocked drainage leading to flooding in the neighborhood, etc. He warned that if the waste collapses it will lead to loss of lives, property, litigation, halted waste dumping operations, and concludes saying that urgent attention is needed to mobilize resources for intervention. He attached a detailed report for the needs. The ED was in Kyankwanzi from July 5th to 12th. She replied on July 16th asking for a breakdown of the things needed, which had been attached. On August 2nd she initiated a request for funds which the director of finance confirmed availability of on August 5th. The accident happened on August 10th.
It is easy in retrospect to condemn Kisaka for some of these delays. But her delays to act quickly and decisively in July pale into insignificance when placed side by side with the delays the top leadership of government made over nine years. Kiteezi was a tragedy that could easily have been avoided had the government given even minimum attention to the problems of our city. But everyone who lives in Kampala knows that it is the most neglected city in the world. Government failed to avail KCCA money to buy a new piece of land to build a new landfill.
Consequently, the city kept piling garbage on garbage creating a mini-mountain 30 meters high. Note: a land fill should not exceed the ground level of where it is built. Given that 85% of Kampala’s garbage is organic, as it decomposes and socks in water, it moves/slides creating the very risk of collapse and the disaster that happened. Everyone in government with power to do something about it, most especially the president, knew that Kitezi was an accident waiting to happen and they did – nothing!
The tragedy at Kiteezi happened on August 10th. Today is November 1st and government has not yet provided KCCA with money to buy alternative land for a landfill. The reader should note that Kiteezi is not used by KCCA alone. Wakiso, Nansana, Kiira, Makindye Sebagobo, Entebbe and Mukono use it too. And none of their leaders has been held to account. The failure of government to provide urgent funds for alternative land to build a landfill mean that now people are using swamps and Lake Victoria to dump waste. The consequences of this may not be realized quicky but in the long term they will lead to flooding and disease.
Space does not allow me to exhaust all the issues involved in Kiteezi. But as I have written before on this subject, Kiteezi is only the top of a huge iceberg in administrative dysfunction in Uganda. As I write this article, an “investor” is massively backfilling (dumping hundreds of lorries of murram into) the swamp behind Bugolobi, especially around Royal Suites. Everyone who lives in Kampala knows that whenever it rains, the city floods. It is becoming increasingly impossible to drive even around Jinja Road round about near Hotel Africana whenever it rains because the place floods. Even a child of ten years knows that this is because of backfilling swamps. I have called NEMA, police, ministry of environment and KCCA and little of no action has been taken so far. Soon, we won’t be able to live in Kampala. Who will arrest who for this failure?
Yet KCCA reflects the overall administrative quagmire in our country. When I visited the arrested leaders of KCCA, I was told that Luzira Upper Prison and Muchison Bay Prison built in the 1930s with the capacity to host 600 prisoner each. Now each one of them has 3,000 prisoners. It they were double storied, there would be a risk of buildings collapsing over prisoners. Would we arrest the Commissioner General of Prisons who has complained all these years about overcrowding and gotten no positive budgetary support?
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amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug
Andrew I cannot add anything more to this article. You have hit all issues related to this tragedy. I know you are trying to avoid saying this but the fact of the matter is that Kitezi was planned by Obote’s government . Museveni has been here for nearly 40 years. That Uganda still suffers from simple issues such as disposing garbage is demonstration of Museveni’s inability to manage a country. Quite simply put Museveni has had the longest tenure and enjoyed the most peace any president has had. While he has done some accomplishments but overall he gets an “F” for running a country and moving Uganda into the modern age. He just does not have what it takes. Museveni is a good militia leader but totally inept as a civilian administrator.
But Mr Andrew M9 what exactly did you expect from Mr Tibuhaburwa’s dysfunctional system where a bloated cabinet of over 80 ministers depends on the “wisdom” of an 80+ years old man? Because it’s on record some of his cabinet members claiming that all their lives depend on this old man’s guidance, including the whole country of more than 45 million people! One professor Semakula Kiwanuka once advised that there should never be an election for president untill the natural demise of Mr Tibuhaburwa; then of recent before Hon. Beti Kamya was appointed government ombudsman, she proclaimed to all and sundry that Mr Tibuhaburwa’s wisdom combines the whole cabinet of over 80 ministers plus the enumerable “presidential advisors”!
The country called Uganda looks very ugly in every administrative structure essentially because of a life presidency NRM project. After nearly 40 years in power Uganda is more of war-torn Somalia, South Sudan, Central Africa Republic, Chad among others.
Look at the face value of the Uganda shilling compared with those of our immediate neighbors in the East African region it’s the most useless!