Just for a moment, imagine Kampala’s streets without street vendors, hawkers, and their cousins in disorganisation—the boda boda riders.
Kampala today is extremely disorganised, and I am not sure there is anyone seriously arguing that the city should remain this way. Beyond the political need to keep a voting base happy, not even Engineer Yusuf Balimwezo truly believes that this level of disorder is what a capital city should look like.
Street vendors pack every major street in Kampala, yet they are not a recognised source of revenue for the city. Meanwhile, shop owners—the legitimate contributors to KCCA’s revenue—struggle to make sales because they sell the very same goods as the vendors operating outside their doors. This is unfair by any measure. We cannot continue demanding that shop owners fund the city while allowing unregulated street vending to compete with them for the same customers. Something has to give. Kampala is right to insist that order must be restored.
Having lived here long enough, I know that enforcing order requires political courage—or more precisely, political insulation. Politicians who rely on voters, many of whom are street vendors and boda boda riders, are unlikely to lead a serious clean-up. City officials pushing these expulsions argue that they are meant to end chaos.
But for thousands of people, this is not chaos—it is their daily bread. Granted, it is daily bread, but must daily bread come with disorder? Are the two truly inseparable? Kampala Minister Minsa Kabanda stepped forward to defend the move as a step toward restoring order. Critics say her words miss the human reality on the ground.
Defenders of the current street chaos argue that while tidy streets sound appealing, expelling vendors and boda boda riders ignores their vital role in Kampala’s economy. They argue that these groups keep the city affordable and moving. There is merit to this argument. Kampala’s informal economy is indeed the backbone of the city. Without it, prices would rise sharply and access to basic goods would shrink.
But this raises an uncomfortable question: which economy does this chaos actually fuel? City authorities insist they receive no revenue from it. Street vendors sell fresh fruits, hot snacks, and cheap phone repairs right where people need them. Most city residents cannot afford formal shop prices. Vendors keep costs low by avoiding rent and overheads, undercutting established businesses.
The economic ripple effect is real. A vendor earning 20,000 shillings a day buys produce from a local farmer, who then pays a mechanic or a shopkeeper. Uganda’s economic reports show that over 80 per cent of jobs are in the informal sector. Expel these workers and the cycle breaks. Families go hungry, and entire neighbourhoods feel the strain.
Vendors also act as informal price regulators. They bargain hard when prices rise, keeping food affordable for the average Kampala resident. Yet policy discussions often treat them as pests rather than as key actors in the urban economy.
Boda boda riders play a similarly critical role. They weave through traffic that traps buses and cars, delivering passengers to their doors at a cost many can afford. Formal taxis are often too slow or too expensive. Boda bodas connect markets to homes in ways large transport systems cannot.
A 2025 Kampala Capital City Authority survey found that 60 per cent of workers rely on boda bodas daily. Businesses depend on them for fast deliveries. Without riders, goods sit in traffic and sales drop. Riders themselves support large families; one rider may feed five children from daily earnings.
Of course, car owners see boda bodas as a nuisance and a safety risk. Criminals also use the same two-wheelers. These concerns are real and cannot be dismissed.
City leaders often point to clean sidewalks and improved aesthetics as the goal. They argue that order boosts tourism and investment. But what of those who lose their livelihoods? Displacement is brutal. A vendor loses a stall and instantly loses income. Over time, joblessness grows, crime increases, and social costs rise.
In a modern capital, public spaces must remain accessible and regulated. But in Kampala, formal rules collide with real human needs. There is a genuine human cost to cleaning up the city, and what we must not pretend is that solutions are easy. They are not.
The critical question is: where do the vendors go? Alternatives must be clear and viable. History offers lessons. When street vendors were expelled to create Kiseka Market under the late Prime Minister and Vice President Dr Samson Kiseka, many doubted anyone would go that far to shop. Kiseka insisted—and today Kiseka Market is not considered far at all. The same resistance greeted the creation of the New Taxi Park. The container village, too, did not always sit where it does today. People were displaced, relocated, and eventually settled.
Kampala’s history shows that order can be achieved, but only when enforcement is matched with planning, patience, and alternatives.
Something must be done to make Kampala more organised. The challenge is not whether to act, but how to do so without destroying the livelihoods that keep the city alive.