Africa-Press – Uganda. The entire late afternoon and evening of Wednesday, social media was awash with frightening images of a flooded Kampala City. In some video clips, we were treated to dramatic scenes of motorists wading through the flooded Kyambogo section on the Kampala – Jinja highway not knowing whether to cry or just laugh!
This was the very section that the Minister of State for Works, Hon. Musa Ecweru had visited three weeks ago a trip which he termed as his regular supporting supervisory roles. During his visit, he acknowledged the shoddy works that has been going on at this junction and directed those concerned both UNRA and Energo contractors to rectify immediately the drainage problems causing the flooding of the area.
Certainly, there hasn’t been any work done and Kyambogo junction continues to get flooded whenever it rains.
That, in itself may not be of a surprise to many Ugandans because actually the country is getting used to these hollow directives or rhetoric from government officials.
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So much has been said about fixing the city roads, dates of commencement and completion of doing works on various roads were issued but still it is as if nothing was ever said. So we are getting accustomed to these populist talks cum (kigumaaza).
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What however is perplexing is that this time round that even when we invited numerous high profile visitors to the city, we never bothered to do the basic and simple clean ups.
As we speak, there is an ongoing high powered delegation from the United Arab Emirates participating in the Second Edition of the Uganda – UAE Business and Trade Conference taking place at Speke Resort Munyonyo.
Looking at the state in which out capital city is in currently, you can only pray and wish that none of those visiting potential investors asks to visit our downtown or seeks to travel to Jinja to experience the life time memories at the Source of River Nile. However, should that happen, then the immediate prayer would be that, it doesn’t rain because if it does, then a boat-raft would probably be needed in order to be able to cross our visitors over from Nakawa to Bweyogerere.
I know that those local logistical planners who normally handle such visitors would be already mapping out the convinient routes that they would use to whisk the visitors in criss crossing Kampala to avoid not only the menace of the city traffic jams but also the flooding that comes with sudden downpours.
It is obvious that from Munyonyo the visitors would be taken on the Northern Bypass to land them immediately after Namboole Stadium in Bweyogerere. That way, they will have left the bulk of flooding city Kampala behind them and they will now only need to employ the sirens to wade through the traffic jams. Smart move by the logistics planners and drivers. But even with our visitors gone, the residents of Kampala will have to endure the menace of a derelict city that has been deliberately let to crumble and become in some tragic cases a death trap to both pedestrians and motorists.
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