Africa-Press – Uganda. Authorities at Kabale Municipal Council, with support from the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development (USMID) programme, have embarked on the construction of standalone drainage channels to reduce floods that have proved to be a threat during the rainy seasons.
This was revealed by the Kabale Municipal Council senior environmental officer, Mr Alfred Ahimbisibwe, during a press briefing at his office in Kabale Town last Saturday.
Mr Ahimbisibwe said they opted for the strategy after observing that associating drainage construction with road construction was not sufficient to solve the problem of floods.
Kabale Town gained municipality status in 1985 and to date, it has three divisions of Central, Southern and Northern; 12 wards and 74 cells and according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos), in 2020, Kabale Municipality had a population of 53,200 people.
“The fact that Kabale Town was created in a valley, the problem of flooding has existed for many years. In order to solve this problem, we have opted to design standalone drainage channels,” he said.
He added: “With support from the USMID programme, we have started with the business centre at Mwanjari in Southern Division. Other areas will be handled in the second phase in consultations with the private landowners in Kabale Town.”
Mr Ahimbisibwe said they plan to do a comprehensive physical planning in respect to environmental concerns as Kabale Municipality prepares for city status come 2025 as approved by government.
Mr Ahimbisibwe also revealed that with support from USMID, they have acquired a garbage mobile weighbridge worth Shs50m to help them calculate the amount of garbage generated in Kabale Town for proper planning for waste management.
“From our current statistics, about 40 tonnes of garbage is generated in Kabale Town every year. Of this, only 22 tonnes of garbage is collected and recycled into manure at our Kirengyere manure processing plant,” he said.
He added: “The uncollected garbage is locally taken by the residents, who gather it for feeding their domestic animals while others use it as direct manure for their crop gardens in peri-urban wards in Kabale municipality. The acquisition of a garbage weighbridge will help Kabale municipality to record the amount of garbage collected per day for purposes of proper planning on waste management.”
Mr Ahimbisibwe said the fact that Kabale Municipality is spending about Shs245m per year on garbage collection, plans are under way to privatise garbage collection where the public will be required to pay for garbage collection from their homes.
The Kabale Municipal Council Mayor, Mr Sentaro Byamugisha, said apart from the garbage and waste management and improved drainage, other beautification programmes that have been put in place include installation of 200 street lights. He said demolition of condemned buildings is underway.
“Our council has directed that all the new buildings on Kabale main road must have four storeys. Other developments in Kabale Municipality include the construction of doctors’ houses at Kamukira Health Centre IV, Rutooma Health Centre III; Kigongi-Rushaki bridge, among others,” Mr Byamugisha said.
Some traders, said although they welcome the planned developments, especially the drainage works, street lights and waste management in Kabale Town, they are long overdue because they have interrupted their business for many years, leading to losses.
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