Every time Kampala floods, we act shocked. We blame the rain. We tweet. Then we go silent, until the next storm comes and the city drowns again. Let’s humbly swallow this pill: Uganda’s floods are no longer unpredictable weather events; they are a structural failure that plays out consistently, season after season.
The rain comes exactly when it’s expected, and Kampala drowns! But let’s be honest here: the floods are not the problem. They are the ‘works of our hands’-a direct result of gaps in our planning, our priorities, and our politics. The evidence is as overwhelming as the floodwaters. Between January and May, more than 52,000 people were affected.
Twenty-three Ugandans died and 241 were injured. Countless traders with shops downtown lost millions in stock. Roads turned to rivers. Some even made us think of buying boats! Kampala came to a standstill. That is the cost of our collective failure. A failure to plan, a failure to enforce, a failure to hold power to account. Uganda’s bimodal rain seasons are well-documented and predictable. What has changed is what we have done with that knowledge. We have declared war on our wetlands and treat every downpour as an act of God’s wrath. It is not. It is an act of negligence and greed. Look at Nakivubo. When a private businessman was handed the drainage channel project, some people clapped.
They said, ‘Finally, a private investor doing what government has failed to do’. Now look at us. Recently, the rains provided the answer. The same channel overflowed. Drainage systems failed, floodwaters invaded markets, traffic stalled, shops flooded, stock floated away, and business ground to a halt. Billions of shillings were lost. The same stories, the same pain. Only this time, after a multimillion-dollar intervention designed to prevent exactly that. It forces us to ask: Was the project structurally vetted by independent engineers? Were the environmental and hydrological impact assessments made public? Was the redesign consistent with Kampala’s topography?
Was this project designed to drain water, or to drain public resources? We are witnessing a dangerous shift: infrastructure designed to serve real estate ambitions first, and public good as an afterthought. Kampala’s problems lie not in a lack of government capacity to fund these projects, but in a lack of governance, weak regulation, and lax enforcement. Let me say it more plainly: The problem is not one channel. Kampala’s drainage challenge is systemic. Wetlands like Lubigi and Kinawataka-the functional kidneys of the city’s water system-have been swallowed by factories and malls. We treat these wetlands as optional green zones, yet they are core parts of the city’s water management ecosystem.
Even the National Environment Management Authority (Nema)-the very body meant to protect the environment-has watched in silence as wetlands disappear under concrete! It has struggled, or chosen not, to enforce its own guidelines.
“Investors” fill wetlands with soil and call it development. Where does the water go? It will find its way into your house and into your shop. Kampala is not an island. It is the country’s economic heart, contributing over 22.5 percent of our GDP.
When the capital floods, the entire nation feels the chokehold. Goods rot, transport halts, businesses die. This isn’t just bad for Kampala, it’s bad for Uganda. President Museveni’s legacy of stability is well established.
But what is stability worth if our capital city drowns in its own waste? What does it protect if the gains we are told to defend are washed away every rainy season? We can no longer call these floods natural disasters. They are the direct result of corruption, impunity, and mediocrity.
The solution requires a fundamental shift: radical transparency in every public contract, empowered and accountable institutions, and consequences for those whose projects fail the first test. Water is science. It will always find its path.
Our continued surprise is a testament to our refusal to learn. If we keep building shopping malls in waterways, we must also be ready to hold funerals in parking lots. The price of our inaction is already being paid. The question is, for how long?