We woke up on Thursday to the news that the Kampala Capital
City Authority (KCCA) was gearing up to move on land lords who had defaulted on
their ground rents and contravened their planning permissions.
Chief among the culprits according to KCCA were the
proprietors of the Forest Mall in Lugogo who have been faulted on both counts.
KCCA says they will be looking into other property owners.
Last year KCCA moved on some property owners in town on the
same grounds.
The developments in the area – Forest Mall and Lugogo Mall
have attracted their share of controversy, being as they were originally
playing grounds and green areas.
On lookers were
baffled when mall came up alongside the older Lugogo Mall and it is interesting
to discover that the original permissions were for a hotel, which would have
maybe made more sense than the acres of empty space in the half complete Forest
Mall a few years after it was opened.
Blame it on the 1970s and 1980s, years of instability where
self-preservation took precedence over all else and the law was an
inconvenience you did not have to follow. The chaos and unplanned expansion of
our city is the logical outcome.
So because maybe we do not know better, the authorities are
not keen to enforce or we just choose to ignore the law anyway we litter our
city, drive like we are in the taxi park and develop our properties with little
regard to the law.
That people are planting billion dollar structures where.
When and how they please with no fear of censure shows how wrong things have
gone bad.
And it is not just the nouveau riche who have made their
billions recently and itching to make a statement. One of the encumbrances on a
major 14-floor structure in Kampala, recently valued at sh50b, is that it is
built on a road reserve. It probably isn’t the only one.
So our businessmen are jeopardising billions of their
supposedly hard earned cash on these building of questionable integrity? It
just goes to show how much impunity has been built into the system.
No one will argue against KCCA throwing the book against
these offenders but one wonders about this delayed reaction.
In the case of Forest Mall KCCA can be forgiven for not
knowing what alternative uses the proprietors would put their “hotel” to, but
the mall has been in operation for at least two years, so what has prompted
action now? Same to all the other developers who have contravened their build
permissions?
I will be the first one to cheer when KCCA is bring sanity
to our little town but justice has not only to be done but to be seen to be
done.
KCCA has built up a lot of good will by beautifying the
city, keeping it clean and try its best to return a semblance of sanity to our
lives but they run the danger of being seen to be selectively executing their
work for whatever reason and jeopardising the goodwill they have built over
time.
Our businessmen should not act as if their money is burning
a hole in their pants, building wily nilly and making us wonder about the
source of their funds. KCCA on the other hand has done well to shed its image
as sluggish public agency but clearly there seems to be a lot more work to do
in speeding up its processes. KCCA should be more vigilante in calling offenders
to order sooner rather than later.
