KAMPALA – Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has said that the city needs a total of UGX140b to rid the city of the garbage.
The Authority’s disclosure was made in the 2019/2020 ministerial policy statement for KCCA before the Presidential Affairs Committee in which Members of Parliament (MPs) expressed concerns over the poor sanitation in Kampala after taking an on-the-spot assessment of interventions by KCCA to ascertain the quality of services it renders to the population.
The Committee noted with concern the deplorable sanitation conditions in some parts of the city which was attributed to poor garbage management, inadequate public toilets, dirty water, and poor drainage maintenance.
The situation was worsened with reported cases of cholera outbreak in particularly Lubaga, Makindye, Kawempe and Nakawa divisions which cases were attributed to poor garbage management as a result of low capacity to collect and transport garbage to Kiteezi and inadequate access to improved sanitation facilities and services especially in the densely populated public premises and informal settlements such as s1ums.
On the other hand, the MPs complained of the exorbitant fees charged by firms contracted to collect garbage and commended efforts by KCCA to take over garbage collection.
The Authority management told Parliament that KCCA requires 65 trucks to collect garbage within the five divisions but only 14 trucks are available.
KCCA informed the Committee that the Authority’s plan is to increase the number of garbage trucks from the current 14 to 25 and construct public toilets in selected communities in the FY20l9/2020 at a cost of UGX20b but there is no proposed allocation to this intended intervention.
The Committee recommended that the Government provides UGX20b to enable KCCA purchase garbage trucks and construct public toilets.
Additionally, Parliament was informed of a looming health-related disaster caused by the overutilization of Kiteezi Landfill to the neighbouring community and staff and the challenge is caused by the operational risks of upstream waste collection services.
The Authority informed the Committee that UGX100b is required to fund decomposition of the old Kiteezi Landfill and plan an initial entry to the new landfill in Dundu are not provided for in the FY 20l9/2020 budget ceiling of KCCA.
However, the Committee proposed to have the funding gap be spread over multiple financial years and that an allocation of UGX20b be extended to KCCA in the FY2019/2020 budget to enable the Authority commence on the proposed interventions.
According to the ministerial policy statement and other information provided to the Committee, KCCA requires UGX865.42b of which only UGX509.6b is proposed allocation within the MTEF ceiling which means the Authority will operate with a total funding gap of UGX355.8b which represents 41% of the required amount.
