Make Uganda Clean project: The consultative panel

trueThe Vision Group Make Uganda Clean campaign has come to an end. Today, Steven Odeke and Watuwa Timbiti bring you profiles of project consultative panel. The cleanest towns shall be unveiled tomorrow (Friday) at the Crested Crane hotel Jinja during the Urban Authorities Association of Uganda’s Annual General Meeting.

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trueDr. Amin Kiggundu Tamale

A lecturer at Makerere University department of physical planning and urban development, Kiggundu is an urban planner and a transport expert.

He is also the executive director of research of the Centre for Urban Studies and Research (CFUSR).

Apart from serving as an associate consultant in urban planning at Uganda Management Institute, Kiggundu has also served as a manuscript reviewer for the Journal of Transportation, published in the US by Arizona State University.

He is widely consulted on various urban issues in Uganda and has published several papers in reputable international journals.

Widely travelled and lived in lived in foreign countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Japan, Kiggundu has done research and has academic interests in urban planning, urban management/ governance, urban sustainability, land use and urban transport planning and management.

He also has interest in public transport systems, sustainable development, project planning and management, transport financing, urbanisation and the environment as well as development theory.

Quoted in The New Vision of May 30, on physical planning and its challenges in Kampala and any other town, Kiggundu puts the blame on poor physical planning.

He says, for instance, that most human activities such as housing/settlement and recreation in Kampala have been undertaken without proper planning, coordination and development control requirements.

trueMary Karooma

Mary Karooma is a landscape architect by profession and currently serves as the Acting Deputy Director Physical Planning at KCCA.

She graduated in Landscape Architecture BA (Hons) Post Graduate Diploma, LA Masters in Laws all from the University of Greenwich, London.

She has about eight years of experience as a landscape architect.

Besides that, Karooma also heads the landscape department at KCCA; she joined about four years ago after serving as director at Karooma Design - an organisation that worked on landscape architecture projects in the UK under TRIAD Architects based in Uganda.

In addition to her architectural career, Karooma has also lectured at Uganda Martyrs University in Nkozi and did private architectural practice in the UK before coming back to Uganda four years ago.

On the Making Uganda Clean project, she believes it is a good initiative for the betterment of all towns and the people of Uganda.

“It is a good initiative, which I hope will encourage cross examination of all towns and the people in leadership together with the stakeholders,” Karooma said.

She continued; “What Ugandans should pick from this project is that our towns and cities should be a showcase of sustainability. They should have revitalised neighbourhoods and cultural destinations.

"These neighbourhoods should be connected by a link of beautiful green spaces, supporting all sorts of ecological value, a network of sidewalks, streets, boulevards and sufficient transit services that connect other towns.

These cities should have parks, lawns, beautiful gardens, to provide habitat and nature within the city, but also deal with storm water challenges.

"Strategies for capturing, managing and reusing a majority of the energy, water and waste must be considered and implemented in our cities. All of these issues dealt with will lead to economically successful cities and a happy people.”

trueDr. Ian Ssenkatuka

An architect and lecturer at Makerere University Department of Architecture and Physical Planning, Dr. Senkatuka will not talk about his career achievements and his life away from architecture.

But he says his career has been successful as he has overseen a number of projects and offered consultancy services around Uganda.

Born in the central region of Uganda, much of his primary and secondary school education was in Uganda before he joined Makerere University where he graduated with bachelors of Architecture (B.Arch) in Urban and Regional planning in 1994.

After Makerere University, he graduated with a masters in Urban and Regional planning from the University of Sydney in 1998. Then in 2001, he enrolled for masters in Project Planning and Management at the University Of Bradford, England.

In 2009, Dr. Ssenkatuka attained a PhD with a focus on management of cities at KTH Royal Institute Of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

And now, he serves as the chairman of national physical planning board at the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development. He is also a board member of the architects registration board of Uganda.

On the Making Uganda Clean project, Dr. Senkatuka believes the future is bright and he hailed Vision Group for the clean towns initiative “because everyone would like to live in a clean town.”

“I would like to thank New Vision for this project because it will help improve the service delivery and infrastructural development in towns. Some towns do not have this kind of exposure and if New Vision visited them, then the future is bright,” he said.

Dr. Senkatuka also says that our cities would benefit more from projects like Making Uganda Clean, if more is exposed. “Our cities need such evaluation processes like Making Uganda Clean to help improve on so many missing aspects. This propels local governments to open up their eyes and also deliver.

He continues: “Planning and implementation of facilities such as pedestrian walkways would be of great benefit to this country. Pedestrians in our cities have no access to good facilities yet they walk and jog everyday in towns. I would like to see our towns have such facilities. We also need parks in towns.

"Our towns should have green spaces that people can use and enjoy. Streetlights, these must be on every street in the country. However, I believe with such projects, such facilities might get provided in the nearby future.” he said.

In addition, Dr. Ssenkatuka whose experience on a number of infrastructural and urban planning projects in the country is undoubted, believes towns will be compelled to compete in cleanliness if projects like Making Uganda Clean continue existing.

“No town will want to be exposed as one with the worst in terms of hygiene, so they will be able to compete. Maybe if we introduced competitions like best division, they will compete more against each other and this will bring town clerks together.

"It is such small simple projects that can make a difference. This will also bring a sense of community where people will work together to achieve something.”

trueRev. Diana Nkesiga

Nkesiga, who is an old girl of Nakasero Primary School and Gayaza High School, is the vicar of All Saints Cathedral Nakasero.

She is one of the first women to scale up the ranks of the administrative hierarchy of the Church of Uganda, which makes her not only a respectable personality, but an influence in the Church’s role and position of women.

She says, according to sources, it is something she has pushed to this end since the 1960s.

A professional teacher, Nkesiga, started her career as a nursery school teacher.

She is married to Rev. Dr. Solomon Nkesiga, the principal of Kampala Evangelical School and acting vice-chancellor Bishop Stuart University.

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