Presidential takeover offers pragmatic solutions for Greater Kampala challenges

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OPINION

By Morrison Rwakakamba

Kampala City and the surrounding area (Wakiso and Mukono) are locked in a traffic gridlock. Cars are not moving. Beyond the traffic, the problems and issues are too many!

Kampala’s challenges are adaptive, unlikely to be solved by technical fixes. The 2010 KCCA Act, which was expected to deliver the silver bullet, only served to expand the toxic quarrels and rancour!

The spirit of the 2010 KCCA Act was to separate administrative (technical) leadership (led by the KCCA Executive Director) from political leadership, led by the elected Lord Mayor. Instead, the setup led to repeated power struggles, legal battles, and governance paralysis, directly impacting urban services like waste management and traffic control.

You recall (and for the benefit of young readers), during Jennifer Musisi’s tenure as KCCA Executive Director (2011–2018), she clashed with then-Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago over authority. Musisi pushed for reforms like banning street vending to reduce litter and congestion, increasing garbage collection by 60% in her first months, and challenging taxi cartels to streamline traffic.

However, Lukwago viewed these as overreaches by the central government, suing her for usurping powers and advising vendors against paying taxes, which undermined enforcement and delayed progress. These disputes spilled into public confrontations, strikes, and court cases, stalling initiatives for cleaner streets and better traffic flow. Even when Jennifer Musisi left, the toxic quarrels and rancour continued — sadly, to today!

And as the foregoing continues, Kampala’s population has ballooned to over 4 million in the metropolitan area, driven by rural-urban migration and overwhelming outdated infrastructure from colonial-era planning. Informal settlements (slums) continue to expand with dire sanitation situations, worsening air quality, traffic congestion fuelled by over 100,000 boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis) and unregulated matatus (minibuses), compounded by potholes and flooding, etc.! Kampala’s problems are too many to enumerate!

Kampala’s Mayor-elect Ronald Balimwezo is coming into the above situation, and he will have nothing to do about it. Why? Because the situation is deeply political and structural, pregnant with conditions that his predecessor operated in. Even if he made a choice to be a ceremonial Lord Mayor, the pressures of his constituents and political alignment won’t allow him!

Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area is too important to be ignored. Beyond the fact that it’s the gateway and front face of Uganda, it is the heart of Uganda’s economic life. Meta data suggests that whereas the area is inhabited by 10-11% of Uganda’s population, it retains at-least 52% of the total economic output.

I, therefore, think the answer to issues of Kampala and the broader Metropolis that stretches into Wakiso and Mukono lies in an act of political pragmatism through a direct presidential takeover. Whereas the Ministry of Kampala (under the President’s Office) supervises Kampala, the 2010 KCCA Act created overlayered and conflicting political power centres. The presidential takeover I refer to is where the President runs KCCA and the Metropolis directly through a technical task team he meets every week to account for agreed actions.

Kampala Metropolitan should be run as a city-state within the state of Uganda. This structural shift should be piloted for 5 years while allowing the upcoming Parliament to debate a new KCCA Act that would moderate broader Kampala interests without inhibiting service delivery. The newly (2026) elected leaders of Greater Kampala metropolitan would be engaged in mobilising community participation activities while the President and his technical task team take control of policy, budget, and quick execution decisions.

The writer is a coffee farmer based in Rukungiri