Africa-Press – Uganda. BY fred muzaleA uthorities in Kayunga Town Council, Kayunga District, have failed to implement a council resolution that requires all new developers in the central business area to construct storeyed buildings as a prerequisite for a municipality status.According to a 2012 council resolution, authorities had also vowed not to approve building plans that lack flush toilets.However, eight years later, the acting assistant town engineer, Mr Fahad Kisosonkole, said last Wednesday that the directive has met stiff resistance from locals, who claim that they don’t have funds to put up the required structures.The central business area where the resolution is supposed to be implemented covers Kayunga Central, Kayunga West, Kayunga North, Kisawo-Kibira and Nakaliro wards.Since the resolution was passed, only three storeyed buildings have been constructed in the targeted areas.Although the council had lowered building fees, Mr Kisosonkole said, the incentive has not spurred construction of the required structures.“We are trying to explain to developers and all residents the need to utilise the available space appropriately and besides this, to have good-looking structures in the urban area,” Mr Kisosonkole said.However, matters have been made worse after the town council itself embarked on construction of an additional office block, which is not storeyed . The offices are located in Kayunga North Ward.A section of residents in Kayunga accuse the town authorities of practicing double standards by constructing such a structure when they direct the developers to build storeyed structures.“How come that for them, who collect taxes they are constructing an office block that is not storeyed? We also see the need to construct storeyed buildings but we don’t have the funds,” Mr Sam Kitaka ,one of the town residents, said.But Mr Kisosonkole explained that they are flouting the resolution because the funds they are using to construct the office block are not enough for a storeyed structure.“We received a donation of Shs50 million from the Ministry Local Government for construction of an additional office block. This money was not enough to erect a storeyed building as we would wish,” Mr Kisosonkole said.Ms Margaret Nansubuga, the Kayunga town clerk, was not available for a comment. But in an earlier interview, she noted that failure to implement the council resolution would render the town’s faecal sludge in Bukolooto village redundant.The government through the Ministry of Water and Environment constructed a Shs1.1b faecal management for the town, however, it has for eight years remained unutilised because there are few water-borne flush toilets in the town.
Significance
Kayunga Town with a population of about 30,000 people was elevated to town council status in the early 1980s.
However, with the increased population, a regional referral hospital, a police station, new sewerage system and a piped water system, local leaders are lobbying the government to elevate the town to municipality status.
