The Observer (Kampala)
2 July 2009
editorial
The long-awaited Bill to actualise the constitutional amendment placing Kampala City under direct central government administration was tabled in Parliament last week. As expected, several people and institutions are vehemently opposed to the idea.
When this proposal was first mooted, it was immediately seen as an attempt by the NRM government to forcefully take charge of Kampala through legislation, having failed to do so through elections. Indeed, this could well have been the motivation of the ruling party.
However, the continued gross mismanagement of the city by opposition-led administrations, one after another, has left many doubting Thomases with no alternative but to support a central government takeover.
Yes, Kampala has been under the NRM before and it still didn't sparkle. Yes, several institutions are under central government authority, but they are decaying all the same. But this is a desperate situation that calls for desperate measures. Kampala has gone to the dogs and someone has got to do something about it.
The corruption, the potholes, the dust, the darkness, the garbage, the flooding, the utter lack of planning, is what Kampala residents have known all these years. How much longer can this continue?
For every country, the capital city is its face. It was therefore wrong, in the first place, to place Kampala on the same footing as other local governments. The challenges facing Uganda's capital are different and certainly greater.
Such unique challenges put the central government in a much better position to give Kampala a facelift because not only does it have more resources at its disposal, it also has a point to prove.
Both Kampala City Council as it is today, and the central government, are indeed devils in the eyes of many city residents, but the latter appears to be a lesser devil here.
What it needs is a benefit of the doubt, which some of us are ready to give. Otherwise, the alternative is keeping a status quo that has failed to deliver. Surely things can't get worse than they already are!
At the end of the day, most residents of Kampala care more about pothole-free roads, cleaner streets, and functioning traffic lights, than the political party of the men and women in City Hall.
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