Category: Daily Monitor

Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has unveiled its 2025/26-2029/30 Strategic Plan, projecting that the city will require more than Shs 4 trillion for roads, drainage, flyovers, and transport retooling to ease congestion and flooding.

The new plan builds on the outcomes of the 2020/21-2024/25 strategy, which sought to make Kampala more inclusive, livable, and resilient. While the outgoing plan registered progress, including an increase in paved city roads from 31 percent in 2017/18 to 37 percent by 2023/24, it faced setbacks such as underfunding, the Covid-19 pandemic, and delays in implementation.

An internal review showed that only 35.5 percent of targets were fully achieved, while 25 percent were not met at all. Persistent flooding, poor drainage, and road maintenance gaps remained unresolved.

Against this background, the new five-year plan prioritizes infrastructure. Major interventions include the Kampala City Drainage Improvement Project (KCDIP) worth Shs 447.6 billion to upgrade 80 kilometers of channels and tackle 103 flood blackspots, and the Kampala Flyover Project Phase 2 valued at Shs 337.2 billion to decongest key junctions. In addition, Shs 1.568 trillion has been earmarked for the Kampala City Roads Rehabilitation Project Phase 2 to expand road works and introduce Bus Rapid Transit corridors, while Shs 63.3 billion will support retooling and maintenance.

KCCA manages more than 2,100 kilometers of roads, but only about 770 kilometers are paved, and many of these are in fair to poor condition.

To address this, KCCA has signed deals and launched projects such as the Kampala City Roads and Bridges Upgrading Project (KCRBUP) and the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area Urban Development Program (GKMA-UDP) to improve connectivity, upgrade infrastructure, and repair potholes.

Speaking at the launch of the strategic plan in Kampala yesterday, Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago acknowledged that the city still grapples with serious challenges, including underfunding, traffic congestion, flooding, poor waste management, and overstretched social services.

‘The plan, however, lays out bold interventions to address these bottlenecks and put Kampala on track to becoming a well-planned, inclusive, and resilient capital,’ he said.

Mr Lukwago added that an evaluation of the outgoing plan revealed that less than half of the targets were achieved, with progress hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic, limited financing, and what officials described as ‘ambitious’ target setting.

‘For instance, while the paved road network expanded from 31 percent to 37 percent, many city roads deteriorated due to insufficient maintenance funds, and flooding in major blackspots remained unresolved,’ he said. ‘The plans are overdue, and therefore we have reflected on our journey, including where we fell short, to ensure we do not repeat the same mistakes.’

KCCA Executive Director Hajati Sharifah Buzeki said the new strategy is designed to align priorities with clear instruments that drive progress and hold the institution accountable to city residents.

‘The new plan, themed Revitalizing Kampala into a Well-Functioning City, identifies five priority objectives: improving economic growth, enhancing inclusiveness and wellbeing, strengthening governance, mainstreaming climate resilience, and building institutional capacity, which we think will be our driver to better service delivery,’ she said.

She noted that the plan was developed through evidence-based planning, rigorous reflection, and broad stakeholder engagement. ‘The next five years mark a deliberate shift towards revitalising Kampala into a well-planned city, with a stronger emphasis on resilience, efficiency, and inclusive growth,’ she added.

According to Ms Buzeki, the plan also incorporates lessons from the outgoing strategy, which achieved 35 percent of its targets, while 7.5 percent of interventions lacked data for assessment.

‘The results were below average, and while we acknowledge disruptions from the Covid-19 pandemic, leadership transitions, and underfunding, we take full responsibility for setting more ambitious and realistic targets this time,’ she said.

‘This strategic plan has been designed not only as a technical document but as a social contract with the people of Kampala. With transparency, accountability, innovation, and citizen participation, we are determined to turn these commitments into tangible results.’

Key highlights of the new plan include transport and mobility, drainage and flood management, urban planning, education improvements in KCCA schools, reducing maternal mortality from 33 to 28 deaths per 100,000 live births, business and employment, among others.

KCCA’s earlier strategic plans, including the 2014/15-2018/19 strategy aligned with Uganda Vision 2040 and the GKMA Development Framework, focused on transport infrastructure, drainage systems, social services, and institutional strengthening.

The subsequent 2020/21-2024/25 plan, valued at about Shs 7 trillion, prioritized road rehabilitation, non-motorized transport, drainage upgrades, waste management, and recycling. While some achievements were registered, funding shortfalls and the pandemic slowed implementation.

In 2003, a cloud of uncertainty hung over the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) ahead of the 2006 presidential election. The 1995 Constitution barred President Museveni from standing again since he had already served two terms.

Yet the party leadership wanted him to continue carrying the mantle. At the National Leadership Institute in Kyankwanzi, the NRM hatched a plan to amend the Constitution and initiated a process that would see their chairperson contest again in the 2006 elections. To secure the process, MPs from the ruling NRM party and allies each received Shs5m, presented as facilitation for consultations with their constituents on the constitutional amendments. A number of senior Cabinet ministers who opposed scrapping term limits were removed from government.

The victims included then Ethics minister Maria Matembe, the late Eria Kategaya, who was first Deputy Prime Minister, and Local Government minister Bidandi Ssali. Their dismissal sent a message: the amendment was not up for debate. According to constitutional lawyer and former Constituent Assembly delegate Dan Wandera Ogalo, the framers of the 1995 Constitution were guided by Uganda’s violent past.

Since Independence, there had never been a peaceful transfer of power from one President to another. ‘We had never had a peaceful transfer of power, and whenever you don’t have a peaceful transfer of power, it means violence. People die, people are maimed, property is destroyed, and people become paupers. This weighed very heavily on us to say we must have a provision which ensures that there is a peaceful transfer of power,’ he recalls.

The Assembly, therefore introduced two safeguards: presidential term limits and age limits. Ogalo notes that even the popular consultations pointed in the same direction.

‘The people of Uganda themselves, in their views, had said they wanted a two-term limit for the President,’ he said. Still, by 2003, he began hearing rumours that Mr Museveni’s strong performance and energy justified amending the Constitution to let him continue. ‘The argument was: if the President is still working very well, why should you do away with him when we still need him?’ he remembers. Current Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo was also part of the Constituent Assembly that debated the Justice Benjamin Odoki report. He recalls the justification for term limits.

‘People put the argument that if you serve more than two terms, then you would have lost the capacity, the reason why we found it necessary to include the two presidential term limits in the 1995 Constitution,’ he says.

He adds that the framers argued that leaders should serve and go, leaving behind strong institutions rather than depending on the strength of individuals. ‘However good a person is, we are only human. We should have a system, not a person. It’s good to have strong and devoted leaders, and people who will love their country, but what will sustain any country are systems,’ he says.

The Chief Justice’s regrets Justice Dollo has often expressed regret that the Assembly failed to entrench the two safeguards. ‘How could we, especially the lawyers, be so foolish? How could we be lured into not strengthening provisions for term limits? We left it as any other provision in the constitution. And that’s why it was easy for Parliament to remove term and age limits,’ he says. He insists that such provisions should have required a referendum to amend.

‘That one, I take responsibility and anybody else who was in the Constituent Assembly. We should have entrenched that provision so that if you want to amend, you go back to the people. We failed the people of Uganda as a consequence.’

For Mr Ogalo, the removal of the two-term and age limits had no justification beyond benefiting President Museveni. ‘Clearly, the scrapping of the two-term limit was to benefit President Museveni. Equally, the removal of the age limit was to benefit President Museveni. That is a very dangerous way of approaching constitutional amendments. You amend the constitution for the people, not to benefit one person,’ he says.

Former Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki, who chaired the constitutional review commission, wrote in his book The Search for a National Consensus that one of the central goals of the 1995 Constitution was to guarantee free, regular, and fair elections.

He recalls that consultations showed overwhelming support for a directly elected president limited to two five-year terms.

‘The President, for the first time, is now directly elected by the entire population. His election can be challenged in the Supreme Court. The term of office is five years, limited to two terms of office only, under Article 105,’ Justice Odoki wrote.

For constitutional lawyer Peter Walubiri, the removal of term and age limits destroyed any chance of constitutional democracy in Uganda. ‘It was the final blow; henceforth, only death by whatever means will remove Mr Museveni from State House and thereby start the process of the NRA-NRM disintegration,’ he says.

The final blow Prof Fredrick Ssempebwa, who was part of Odoki’s Commission, agrees. He recalls that the majority of Ugandans demanded term limits because they had never seen a peaceful transfer of power. ‘They wanted to have a peaceful change. They didn’t use that language of term limits, but they said there must be a system where leaders change right from the top,’ he says. Prof Ssempebwa notes that even Museveni supported the idea during consultations. ‘When we consulted, President Museveni repeated what he said at the very beginning, that the problem of Africa was leaders who overstay in power,’ he recalls. Now, with President Museveni in power for nearly 40 years, Prof Ssempebwa says the dangers are visible.

‘There are fears about his health, his grasp of power, and his control of things, so it’s a problem for the country. There is also this power of incumbency, and he is unlikely to be voted out,’ he says.

When Mr Museveni took power in 1986 after a five-year guerrilla war, he declared that Africa’s problem was leaders who overstay. But after the scrapping of term limits in 2005, he accepted his party’s endorsement for another run. On November 17, 2005, the NRM named him flagbearer. His candidacy sparked criticism, especially since he had promised in 2001 that it would be his last run. The arrest of Opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye in November 2005, on charges of treason, concealment of treason, and rape, triggered riots across the country. International donors, including Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK withheld aid, citing democratic concerns.

In the 2006 elections, Mr Museveni’s vote share dropped to 59 percent, while Dr Besigye garnered 37 percent. Election observers from the European Union declared that the polls were not free and fair. Dr Besigye challenged the results in the Supreme Court, which found evidence of intimidation, violence, and voter disenfranchisement. Still, in a 4-3 decision, the court upheld Mr Museveni’s victory.

Currently, Mr Museveni is the third-longest consecutively serving non-royal leader in the world after Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and Paul Biya of Cameroon. When asked why he stayed on despite his earlier statements, he replied that it was the people who kept voting him back.