Kampala’s garbage crisis has once again come under the spotlight as the Minister for Kampala, Minsa Kabanda, expressed deep dissatisfaction with the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) enforcement team.
The minister, while leading a massive cleanup exercise in Kamwokya, Old Kampala, and Bukesa, blamed authorities for neglecting the city, allowing drainage channels to clog with waste, and endangering public health.
By 7 AM on Sunday, Minister Kabanda, alongside the KCCA team, led by the Executive Director, Sharifah Buzeki, arrived in Kamwokya for a mass waste evacuation exercise. But instead of a fresh start, they were welcomed by blocked trenches and drainage choked with garbage.
As part of the "Keep Kampala Clean" campaign, the team got to work, unblocking trenches and clearing waste.
However, Minister Kabanda didn’t hold back her frustration, pointing fingers at the KCCA team for negligence. She condemned the piles of unsorted garbage and clogged drainage right in front of shops and homes calling it an unacceptable failure in city maintenance.
"People are at risk because of too much garbage. They don’t clean, yet businesses continue to operate beside smelly trenches. I think KCCA has not done enough because if they have been working Kamwokya wouldn't look like this. This negligence is unacceptable and I'm ashamed and not happy because of what I have seen," Minister Kabanda stated.
Trucks should go to people's houses every week to collect garbage before it is heaped around people's and KCCA should sensitize people on waste disposal," she added.
She emphasised the need for households and businesses to take responsibility by sorting waste, while also calling for strict measures to ensure garbage collection trucks are covered to prevent air contamination.
Sharifah Buzeki, the Executive Director of KCCA, said the authority has launched a three-month clean-up campaign, where every Sunday, teams will conduct mass waste evacuations across Kampala’s central and outskirt areas to ensure effective garbage collection and drainage clearance.
"We have introduced disposal packages to sort waste which will also ease pressure on landfills, and we are enforcing a ban on dumping in trenches," Buzeki noted.
Buzeki who is a new leader at KCCA further revealed that KCCA is negotiating for more government funding to implement a clean city strategy, especially in places where waste management has a bigger cost implication.
However, as the waste problem persists, residents and business owners remain concerned about the city’s sanitation, with many calling for stronger enforcement and sustainable waste management solutions