FOR EVERYONE'S GOOD, KAMPALA BOSSES SHOULD RESOLVE THEIR ISSUES

The tarmacking of the Kitala-Komambogo road has been in the works for a few months now. So it was with much relief that the contractors set to work a few weeks ago and we can now drive on a smooth road.

And now horror of horrors, we even have street lighting now.

This is the latest in the tarmarking of three roads – Bukoto-Kisasi, Bahai road, Komabogo-Bahai-Kyadondo road, Kyebando Ring road, in the area that have come since the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) came into force in 2011.

"As residents of the area we are ecstatic and half under our breaths we think that anything else KCCA does for the area will be a bonus. We are fine....

Interestingly we are not the only ones. All the divisions of Kampala can report an improvement in the road network and general cleanliness over the last six years or so.

It doesn’t take a genius to map these sorely needed development to KCCA executive director Jenniffer Musisi’s tenure at White Hall.

We can therefore not be the only one disturbed by  reports such the recent one where KCCA councillors want President Yoweri Museveni to terminate executive director Jennifer Musisi’s contract for defying a directive by minister Beti Kamya to raise their salaries.

Never mind that the finance ministry rejected a request for a supplementary budget from Musisi of sh3.6b to give the councillors a 30 percent bump in their pay.

And now the minister has threatened to institute a probe against the executive of KCCA following stories she has heard of their being a lack of transparency and professionalism in how KCCA goes about its work.

Just when we thought we had put the days of malaise in Kampala City behind us then this. One cannot help but feel there is a malevolent spirit hovering over Uganda’s capital city, determined to keep it in chaos, disrepair and confusion.

The idea between the creation of the KCCA was broadly to extract the running of the city away from the vagaries of politics. Politics was getting in the way of implementation of much needed development projects in the city which was fast deteriorating into a filthy, congested and insecure hovel, not befitting of the country’s centrepiece.

KCCA has got off to good start and the residents of Kampala were holding their breath that it may last a little bit longer.

"Musisi and her lieutenants have faced down many challenges, all of which had the cynics rolling out the silver and gloating that competence can never be allowed to thrive...

In the last term a knotty contest between Mayor Erias Lukwago and Musisi, while it did not bring progress to a standstill, hung like a dark cloud over the city’s affairs. An obliteration of the ruling party in the city, as has become tradition, had local politicians pointing fingers at KCCA, the argument being that the Authority’s good work in cleaning up the streets, putting UTODA in its place and generally improving our collective wellbeing cost them votes!

KCCA is living testament to that saying that, “No good deed goes unpunished!”

KCCA’s corridors are not populated by angels. The people of kampala would care less how the most recent impasse is resolved as long as the authority can be allowed to keep doing and better, what it has been doing.

We cannot be blamed for looking upon anyone who seems to be in the way of this development with a jaundiced eye.

Never the less blood need not flow in the streets over this. Let Kampala’s top bosses, who incidentally are ladies – Thank God! Resolve what seem sto be a breakdown in communication and get on with the job of making Kampala great again!