Voters have spoken on Kampala wrangles

Embattled Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago was on Thursday re-elected with a landslide. Mr Lukwago who stood on the independent ticket garnered 176,637 votes more than tripling his nearest challenger, NRM candidate Daniel Kazibwe aka Ragga Dee who managed only 49,366 votes. Equally significantly, the NRM party’s majority in the previous council was wiped out. The party retained only two seats on the 31-member council with the rest taken up by the opposition, mostly FDC.

For the last five years, Kampala city hall has been consumed by an intractable fight between the NRM government represented by executive director Jennifer Musisi and Kampala Minister Frank Tumwebaze on the one hand, and Mr Lukwago and the opposition on the other. The fights reached fever-pitch when Mr Lukwago was controversially “impeached”. He took his case to court. When court eventually makes a ruling, the circumstances will have fundamentally changed on the ground and the ruling may only have academic value.

The people of Kampala delivered their verdict on Wednesday. Thus by coming out and voting as they did, they were sending a clear message as to how they want city hall managed. It is therefore important that all a parties at City Hall take cognizance of this and step back from the confrontations that characterized the last five years.
But that is not to say that it was all wrong in the last five years. There are many good things that happened. Order was restored in the commercial party of the city where vendors, rubbish, broken sewers were once the order of the day. There was also some progress made in the transport network with many trunk and side roads tarmacked. Street lighting was also greatly improved.

Kampalans would like to see these improvements continue. But they would also like to see greater accountability and less impunity. All can be achieved once the two sides and their respective principals learn from their past mistakes and accept to march forward hand in hand.
This is because there are urgent problems to address, among them the traffic jams that cost Kampalans many man-hours and money, the broken drainage systems that often leaves the city flooded, pollution, to mention a few.
Good luck to everybody!

The issue: Kampala City management.
Our view: It is, therefore, important that the central government and its representatives at KCCA take cognizance of this and step back from the confrontations that characterised the last five years. Kampalans would like to see these improvements continue. But they would also like to see greater accountability and less impunity. All can be achieved once the two sides and their respective principals learn from their past mistakes and accept to march forward hand in hand.