Last week was a big week for KCCA.
There was the now annual Kampala Carnival, a colourful
parade up and down the city’s main thoroughfare, which culminated in fireworks
display. There was the commissioning of the Wandegeya market, a multi storied
complex which stands, where once was a dingy, congested market that accounted
for a significant part of Kampala’s food needs. And then there was the
commissioning of the rehabilitated New Taxi park.
While these events have been greeted with much pomp and
fanfare, quietly in the suburbs of the city developments have been going on
almost unnoticed (probably drowned by the heckling of politicians) – garbage is
being collected, roads have been laid and lit and the army of yellow cleaners
every morning have become a ubiquitous sight. Slowly but surely our city is
styling up.
And we the residents of Kampala wonder where has Jennifer
(she is now in the league of people who are known by their first names only!)
been all our lives.
But the improving respectability of the city is the visible
change, under the surface a lot of heavy lifting is going on at the authority.
Last week it was announced that Kampala’s revenue
collections had almost doubled to sh56b last year from sh30b the previous year.
Interestingly taxis – those road users we love to hate, accounted for sh12b of
this while in the previous year they forked out less than sh5b. As if that is
not enough the city expects to collect about sh70b this financial year.
To say that these jumps in revenue collections are
impressive would count as the understatement of the century and points to the
vast potential of this city, which accounts for more than 50% of the country’s
economic activity.
But the question has to be asked so where was all this money
going? Because it’s not as if economic activity has doubled in the last year to
justify this jump? At worst these revenues were collected and stolen by public
officials, probably explains the 151 accounts the city used to run prior to
KCCA. At best the businessmen of these city were not paying their dues and these
served as a subsidy to their business.
Either way the party is clearly over and we the residents of
Kampala think it did not end soon enough.
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition
from mediocre minds," Albert Einstein once said.
That maybe true of the friction KCCA has come
against in trying to set things straight, but it’s probably more a function of
the entrenched interest groups that have held the people of Kampala hostage for
decades fighting to keep their privileges.
The irony of it is that KCCA is being lauded
for doing what it is supposed to do. The city’s administration had sunk so low
that now when somebody comes and does the basics – keeping the city clean,
repairing roads, collecting revenues they look like superheroes.
It reminds me of former National Water &
Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) boss Dr William Muhairwe who sometimes was amused
at some of the publicity he got, because as he said, “We are just doing what we
are supposed to do.”
The history aside what KCCA is showing is
that we as a city, as a nation as a people are more capable than we think. That
resources for our own transformation are within reach if only we can have the
vision and will to reach out and take them.
There is still a lot of work to be done,
after all you do not unwind decades of neglect, incompetence and corruption in
a year or two, but the momentum being set is promising.
A few years ago some people looked the
organisation of KCC at the time with a view to raising money via bonds for the
city council to finance some of its urgent development projects. What they
found was a morass of -- to put it mildly bad accounting, it was not clear how
much the city collected in revenue, and if it did whether it was charging
optimal rates and the expenses were a deliberate labyrinth, impossible to make
sense. But they had an inkling of the revenue potential of the city and advised
that the day administration gets its act together the sky will be the limit.
That time might have come.
But we know that the special interest groups
have only made a tactical withdrawal and are likely to come back with even more
vehemence than before. Whether they take back the city is really up to the
ordinary citizens of Kampala.
