Mukono residents, leaders bicker over new KCCA waste management project

Mukono residents and leaders are at loggerheads over the proposed waste management project in Dundu village, Kyampisi sub-county.

The waste management project is to be built by Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).

KCCA secured 136 acres of land to construct a modern garbage dump site. The facility will have several decomposing deep dump pits, electronic waste processing units and bio systems for energy.

This site is intended to serve the entire greater Kampala districts.

This website visited the contested area and engaged some of the residents living next to the project.

Several residents questioned why Mukono Kyampisi sub-county leaders are hesitant to welcome the KCCA project yet it has promised many job opportunities for the area.

They say that KCCA leaders have visited the area and explained that clean water, roads and job opportunities will come with the project.

A resident who preferred anonymity claimed that, ""Leaders are fighting this project not because they care, but for their personal reasons. They make noise in the hope that KCCA calls them for deals."

Another resident added, "We were promised good roads, tapped water as social corporate responsibility from KCCA and on top of that employment opportunities to the community."

However, a group of middle class residents led by Dr. Specioza Kazibwe claims that dumping of waste before developing the area will cause bad odour in the area on top of contaminating water and polluting the environment.

Kazibwe argued, "This is a residential area KCCA is planning to establish the project we are most likely to face the same challenges Kiteezi people are facing therefore we should not allow them to come"

The Member of Parliament Abdallah Kiwanuka has vowed to lawfully resist this project up to the bitter end.

But KCCA spokesperson Daniel NuweAbine defended the project. NuweAbine said that the project does not possess an environmental threat to the area because it will be constructed and ran with safety of residents as its primary priority.

He promised that KCCA will embark on a further sensitisation programme to explain to residents the benefits of the project in their midst.