Kigumba's hygiene still wanting,Lukaya in Cholera fear

 

The rising sun finds the porters sweeping the streets. Others collect and empty garbage bins. A tractor drives through, stopping at collection points to load the garbage. Although the heaps are enormous, the determination to freshen the town is evident. The cleaners work all day, picking the rubbish with their hands and loading it on wheel barrows. There is a lot to be done. In the corridors, besides the garbage, dirty water is flowing from kitchens and bathrooms.

 

As evening approaches, Kinaali Street around the market area becomes a beehive of activity. Vendors are selling vegetables, fruits, cassava and sweet potatoes. The only source of lighting is paraffin candles (tadooba). A few traders depend on electricity light flashing from the open shops.

 

It is obvious the town does not have street lights. “That is our fate; that is how it has been for as along I remember,” Rosemary Akello a middle-aged woman says in a matter-of-fact way. Light or no light, the town appears determined to clean up its act. In a Vision Group survey, up to 93% of the respondents said they were satisfied with the town cleanliness leading to a score of 5.8/10.

 

The town has dustbins and a cleaning schedule for roads and markets. Although 40% said they had seen dustbins on the streets in the last three months and almost all (87%) reported it was not easy to locate a dust bin, they are hard to find. No wonder 80% of the residents said they had seen someone dump rubbish on the street.

 

Although the town enjoys some tarmac of 40%, potholes seem to have taken over averagely scoring 5.0/10, with half (53%) of the respondents reporting seeing one. While piped water is available, only a third of the residents are supplied through the public tap. The rest rely on spring wells and the town has no a central sewer system.

 

 Public toilets are well distributed across the town. Over 60% of respondents were aware of public toilets. Although the town seems to be ditching traditional pit latrines, the toilets both public and VIP, are dirty, scoring 2/10. To make matters worse, you cannot ease yourself in a public toilet if you are broke. It costs sh140 to use one. Responding to the issue of garbage, Gabriel Akugizibwe, the Kigumba town clerk, says: “We have limited resources to manage garbage yet it requires a lot of money.” James Ochiba the health officer blamed the reckless disposal of garbage in the town to the fact that the residents are still transiting from the rural to the urban ways of life.

 

“They have not yet adopted the urban culture of ensuring good sanitation and hygiene and simply throw garbage anywhere,” Ochiba said. He said about 80% of the residents disappear whenever communal cleaning of the town is announced and the cleaning is left to hired people. The plot thickens since the town has only two tractors and no garbage skips.

 

 

 

Using what they have Despite the limited resources, the authorities have interventions to ensure they have a clean town. Karubanga Ateenyi said a sanitation and hygiene bylaw is in place to engage the local people to participate in keeping the town clean. He said offenders will be fined sh20,000. More collection points have been set up to minimise the haphazard disposal of garbage. He said the town was pursuing a sh5m deal to bring the private sector on board. The authorities have also started impounding stray cattle and fining the owners. A concerted effort to sensitise residents about rearing animals is ongoing.

 

The authorities have also partnered with the National Forest Authority — Masindi branch and planted 600 trees. A bunker has been built to help manage garbage; a practice that Karubanga learnt when he visited Kamuli town earlier this year. Garbage skips will be placed along all the roads. There is also a plan to tarmac the central business roads and the money to set up the solar street lights, is already put aside. Akugizibwe said this financial year, the town received a sh43m grant to open up and survey roads.

 

Jacob Karubanga said the authorities are leading by example and they too participate in cleaning exercises. There was a huge heap of garbage behind the market, but we all worked tirelessly to remove it.

 

 

Lukaya is not only a highway town on the Kampala-Masaka road, but is also located in a swampy area, often battling floods. Deep latrines cannot be sunk; instead, the high-raised type are the major type of latrine in this town located 28km from Masaka. 

 

The Lukaya town Clerk, Richard Ssebandeke, said the latrines fill so fast since they are not deep, adding that the rainy season is a nightmare in the town when the wastes spill out of the latrines.Ssebandeke adds that they have already requested for a cesspool truck from the central government to empty the latrines. They also need bylaws to deal with careless disposal of rubbish.

 

Despite that, public toilet awareness in the town is high, according to a Vision Group survey, with the pit latrine as the commonest, although on a lower scale, the bush and alleys are used as places of convenience. Similarly, Lukaya which started as a small trading centre manned by Asians and later became a town board in 1982 and was elevated to a town council in 1995, is equally grappling with sewage bursts. A slightly high proportion of the respondents (53%) report having seen the problem, noting that fixing it was slow. 

 

Although, according to the survey, the town has a cleaning schedule and residents are satisfied with its cleanliness, increased provision and proper distribution of dustbins is needed; for instance, just 33% of the respondents have seen dustbins in the town, but they are also reported as dirty and insufficient. The town, whose population is estimated to be over 30,000 is not doing well on rubbish.

 

A high proportion (73%) have seen someone litter the town in the past three months and slightly less than half, have avoided littering. An insignificant 3% of the respondents have avoided pollution activities like burning and still only 17% have sensitised people about sanitation. The town’s budgetary allocation for sanitation is still low. Out of the sh644.4m 2013/14 budget, only sh26m, according to Ssebandeke, is allocated to garbage collection.

 

The central government funds sh355m of the total budget and sh241m is locally generated, Most of the roads are murram and levelled ground, with potholes. Lukaya, depends on averagely regular and very clean piped water Loitering of animals and poultry is another challenge. All the respondents say they have seen animals in the town in the past six months, with cows being the majority (100%) and goats (87%).

 

No garbage dumping site The town’s sanitation challenges are far from over; the authorities are currently faced with eviction from a piece of land, which has been a garbage dumping site. The UPDF owns the land and would like to build an airstrip on it. The town clerk, however, says they are in negotiations with the UPDF so that they retain a small portion of the land to serve as a dumping site.

 

The mayor, Gerald Ssenyondo, on the other hand, says if the response is not in their favour, they will have to find an alternative site. He however, notes that the town, however, does not have enough land for development projects.

 

Although 60% of the respondents have seen overgrown grass in the town, they said the grass and gardens in the town are well-maintained. The town whose buildings (60%) have old paint, has one secondary school and does not have a vocation training institute to cater for the needs of its residents and the town clerk says they have spared 15 acres for a vocational institutions and secondary school