Kampala MPs Vow to protest against potholes, floods in the City.

 A section of Kampala Members of Parliament has threatened to organise protests against “rampant” floods and potholes on roads in the city.

The MPs have thus issued a two week’s ultimatum to government to fix the roads and drainage in Kampala or they launch protests.

During Friday plenary sitting, the MP for Rubaga North, Abubaker Kawalya noted that due to the poor drainage in Kampala, the city is being overwhelmed by floods.

He warned that failure by government to fix the challenges in 14 days will prompt them to organise protests.

“We shall not sit down and see all these challenges, we are giving them an ultimatum of a maximum of two weeks to work on most of the challenges that have affected our people, most especially when it comes to flooding. We all know what causes flooding, the status and quality of our drainage is in bad state,” Kawalya said.

Kawalya also questioned the proposal by the First Son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba of deploying Special Forces Command (SFC) to fill Kampala potholes with ’soil’, during his tour around Kampala.

Kawalya argued that the challenges of Kampala infrastructure is not about human capital but rather the meagre funds allocated to the Uganda National Roads Authority.

“The main challenge of the roads in Kampala isn’t the human capital, we have engineers well paid in KCCA, contractors are there ready to work just in case the resources are provided. But our concern is, why has Gov’t failed to provide when it comes to construction of roads and drainage in the city?” Kawalya.

Allan Ssewanyana, the MP for Makindye West accused government of failure to prioritise the issue of roads and drainage in Kampala despite the city being largest contributor to the tax base.

He said that people in Kampala are paying too much in taxes and that as such, they expect some outcomes like better roads in the city.

“As leaders, we shall not sit back and watch Kampala go down especially on the issues concerns the drainages and roads. We have roads which aren’t roads, if you look at the potholes in Kampala, they are clocking close to 9,440 Sq Km which means almost 90% of the roads in Kampala have potholes. People spend too much in repairing their cars because of the potholes,” Ssewanyana said.

It should be noted that Parliament, in August 2023, approved two loan facilities worth Shs2.2Trn from World Bank and French government for road construction projects in Metropolitan Kampala.

However, till now, Kampala is grappling with the challenge of potholes and flooding.