ERIAS LUKWAGO RISKS GETTING AN AMENDMENT OF THE LAW THAT MAY NOT FAVOUR HIM

Someone has written that, "It is the combined power of sound technocratic management backed by a good dose of political skill that will change Kampala."  This holds water.  Much as I am opposed to President Museveni's leadership, life has to go on.  I am one of those who longed to see change in the law regarding the performance of Kampala city.  It is a fact that the election of leaders in Uganda has lead to poor service delivery as opposed to the appointed leaders.  Erias Lukwago the Lord Mayor is currently a victim of this.  And, it is the very basis why there was need to get none appointed leadership in the city, otherwise, the voted in leaders are all the time concerned about being re-elected and this fails service delivery.  It is true, Madam Jennifer Musisi has her faults as any human being, but as we focus on changing the face of the city, there is need to have a decision maker to see service delivery to the beneficiaries of the city real.  When shs 150,000 was levied to be paid by taxi operators, I was one of the advocates of a reduction to shs 100,000, and I must say that I was happy to see the reduction to shs 120,000.  However, the decision made yesterday in the court came about simply because Lukwago wanted the operators to pay a lower fee.  However, Lukwago fails to understand that one objective of hiking the fee was meant to de-congest the city as many serious business people find it a nightmare operating in Kampala.

Given that the KCCA law is bound to be amended, the Lord Mayor may find his position worse as it is now clearly seen that he solely can frustrate developments in the city when something is not done according to his will.  

Let us not be short sighted, Musisi and her group have done much.  Who ever knew that UTODA monopoly would become history?

William Kituuka Kiwanuka 

Court stops Shs120,000 monthly taxi fee

DACA wins KCCA about charges

News : 2013-04-11 The High Court in Kampala has stopped Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) from collecting a monthly fee of Shs120, 000 from taxi drivers and operators within Kampala city, saying it's illegal.

Justice Benjamin Kabito made the order Wednesday, in a landmark ruling.

In the ruling, Justice Kabito said there is no law under which KCCA based its decision to collect the much-contested monthly fee from the drivers and taxi operators.

However, Justice Kabito did not make any order regarding the refund of any such money that KCCA collected from the commuter taxi operators since last year.

Early last year, the taxi operators and drivers under the Drivers and Conductors Association (DACA) sued KCCA Executive Director Jennifer Musisi and KCCA, saying the Shs120, 000 monthly fee was unfair. They instead proposed to pay Shs70, 000.

In the suit, the petitioners argued that since they pay a fee at their respective stages in the various taxi parks in Kampala, there was no reason for KCCA to burden them with an extra monthly charge.

DACA leader Mustafa Mayambala was present in court when the ruling was made.

He expressed disappointment that the judge did not order KCCA to refund all the money it had collected from them since 2012.

Shortly after the ruling, Ms Musisi told a press conference that the authority would decide on a new fee to be paid by the drivers.

On March 30 last year, over 5,000 taxi drivers went on a two-day strike to oppose the Shs 120,000 levy. However, KCCA stood its ground and staged road blocks on various city routes, impounding taxis whose operators did not comply with the new payment system.

How UTODA has conned the public for 6 years

Written by David Lukoma Thursday, 14 July 2011 16:09

A lot of scorn has been poured upon the Uganda Taxi Operators and Drivers Association (UTODA), but this does not stop us from unearthing more rot in the taxi-operators' house.

The latest evidence implicating the Taxi body indicates that as far back as 2005, UTODA was banned through an order of Court to stop collecting un-receipted monies from conductors, which translates into higher fares for passengers.

Such dubious collections include welfare, allegedly paid to bail out drivers when they fall on hard times, and loading fees, paid each time a taxi picks a passenger from designated parks and any other stop-over scattered around Kampala and the suburbs.

Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire, who was then acting judge in the High court and has since been promoted to head the Commercial section of the High Court-- made the order on May 14, 2005.

A total of 800 members of the Association of Taxi Owners and Drivers in Uganda, including Emmanuel Sserunjogi, who once deputized Kawempe Division LC111 Chairman, Hajji Takuba Kabuye, had complained about such fees when Kiryabwire outlawed them.

" ….In this era when there is a call for greater accountability and transparency, it is unfortunate that a fee for whatever reason,  be it loading or voluntary contribution for welfare is levied and is not receipted," Kiryabwire observed.

Sounding prophetic, Kiryabwire warned: "Non-receipting of monies received whether legally or not can breed problems and UTODA need to address this issue quickly."

Motivated by greed perhaps, UTODA executives chose to play the proverbial ostrich, taking to hiding their heads in the sand. They only woke up to reality after the taxi drivers paralyzed public transport with their sit-down strike.

Government on Monday, through Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi, suspended the dubious fees, announcing a three- week- probe into the standoff.

Billions pocketed by UTODA

Source: http://www.sunrise.ug/news/top-stories/2698-how-utoda-has-conned-the-public-for-6-years.html

When he was sworn in as the Lord Mayor of Kampala, Erias Lukwago vowed that he would restore sanity in the city's public finances as well as improve the transport network.

Over the past few days, Lukwago has used his powers to get UTODA to explain where they put an estimated Ushs 4 billion collected in legal and illegal fees.

Lukwago and other close observers of the taxi business say that although UTODA collects up to Ushs 4bn every month, they only remit about Ushs 392m a month to KCCA.

Impeccable sources told The Sunrise that each taxi-- on loading--leaves behind fares for two passengers to feather the so called welfare kitty. Curiously, this category of money is not receipted, meaning there is no way one can be tasked to account for it-- if need arises, making it easy money for one to squander.

Nearly all past mayors have ignored the dubious and exploitative activities of UTODA, arguably through selfish interests.

There is also public outcry about arbitrary hikes in taxi fares,-- more so during festive seasons, rush hours, back to school seasons, during heavy down pours, taxis hike fares simply because UTODA reneges in its responsibility of regulating public transport.

Despite the pain endured in last Monday's strike, many Ugandans have expressed support for the ongoing investigations with the view that it will result into affordable and more organized public transport.

How to change Kampala (Part 1) Sunday, 13 May 2012 18:50 By Andrew M. Mwenda The innovations KCCA needs to finance the redevelopment of the city from its own resources On April 19, Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA) held a public dialogue on their plans to improve our city. I was honoured to be the main speaker even though my knowledge of city planning, administration and management is scanty. But like every observant person living in a city and suffering from, but enjoying, many of its problems and opportunities, there is an experience I could talk about. For example, Kampala has grown into a very dirty and disorganised city: streets are chocking with motor vehicle traffic, polythene bags and plastic bottles litter every street, garbage goes uncollected for weeks, potholes fill our roads, green areas have grown into sprawling bushes, publics parks have been turned into concrete, most street and traffic lights don’t work, vendors stalk every street, hawkers hold every block, utility companies dig trenches in the streets that go unfilled for months, when it rains roads turn into rivers or lakes  – the list is endless. Although these are the problems we suffer daily, they are symptoms of a much wider problem – the problem of lack of planning, of poor revenue mobilisation and of politics. Up until 1967, Kampala used to constitute the current Central Business District (CBD), old Kampala, Kololo, Nakasero, Bugolobi and Port Bell. These areas were planned. When kingdoms were abolished in 1967, areas that had been under Mengo (Rubaga, Kawempe, Nakawa and Makindye) divisions were transferred to become part of the city. These areas had not yet been planned. In 1968, government produced the Kampala Redevelopment Master Plan integrating these areas into the plan of the city. It was supposed to be implemented alongside the Third Five Year Development Plan whose commencement date was 1971. Sadly, that year Idi Amin took power and the implementation of the plan died. Amin’s take over set in motion a process of internal institutional deterioration in Uganda, initially slow but gaining pace in the late seventies to early eighties and gaining full momentum in the 1990s till today. Increasingly, developers would put up buildings without following city rules or would bribe city officials to twist the rules in their favour. Thus, road reserves in suburbs were ignored. Areas previously planned for drainage were disregarded and developed. Public parks were sold to developers. Many buildings in the CBD were built without parking. As the city has grown, so has been the pressure on its infrastructure – which has remained unchanged. For example, today, many residential houses have turned into office premises and thereby generating high traffic in areas originally meant for low traffic. Consequently, Kampala has been growing haphazardly, turning many areas like Makindye, Mutungo, Bukoto, Ntinda, Naguru, Muyenga and Buziga into rich people’s slums. It has also allowed people to build in wetlands (often blocking drainage systems) and in road reserves (hence narrow streets). But this also means that Kampala’s dysfunctions are backed by a large army of people with a vested interest in their perpetuation – rich and poor. Vendors with kiosks and stalls are as determined as the rich (with buildings) to stay in road reserves and wetlands; hawkers don’t want to quit the streets, boda bodas don’t want to leave the CBD and bureaucrats who steal money meant for garbage collection in the city want to hold onto their privileges too. These are the militants who will resist reform. For KCCA to overcome these problems, it needs to develop a new master plan for the city and mobilise revenues to finance it. Developing a master plan is easy. KCCA can hire the best consultants to write such plan. The challenge will be how to implement it within the context of our highly polarised, sometimes mindless politics. To implement a master-plan will need revenues. There is a mentality in Uganda that for every fiscal shortage we must go to someone else – the government or the donors. Yet KCCA can mobilise US$ 1billion if they invested heavily in building capacity for its mobilisation. However, to generate such revenues will demand ruffling many feathers. And that is where politics rears its ugly head. The major source of revenues for most cities is property rates, trading licenses, parking fees, leases on land, market dues, charges on bill boards etc. KCCA’s Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi, will need to convince President Yoweri Museveni to withdraw the directive that property rates should not be paid on owner-occupied houses. This directive has allowed people to claim to be living in houses they are actually renting. It is very difficult to establish whether someone is living in their own house or not because they can collude with their tenants. The essence of property rates is to allow the city administration to provide public services to neighbourhoods. These services are provided to everyone regardless of whether they live in their own house or they rent it. Secondly, to effectively collect property rates, KCCA needs to map every street and every plot and give it a name and a number. This allows them to develop a database of all houses in the city from which to collect property rates. To do this well, it also needs to work with the Land Registry and Uganda Revenue Authority to establish the owners of the different houses. KCCA also needs to rigorously insist on the registration of every business in the city: taxis, boda bodas, barber shops, supermarkets, kiosks, salons, garages, shops, restaurants, law firms, consultancies etc. This will generate revenues in form of trading licenses. Today, I suspect (arbitrarily) over 80 percent of all those who do business in Kampala do not have trading licenses. KCCA also needs to extend its parking charges beyond the CBD to the rest of the city. It also needs to introduce a congestion tax for motor vehicles entering the CBD. Here it will kill two birds with one stone; it will reduce the number of vehicles congesting the city while collecting fees from those who are willing to pay the high price to enjoy the privilege. To implement any or all these suggestion will displease many people. Any attempt at such reforms will create political tensions and how to navigate them to realise success is Musisi’s biggest challenge, a subject I will return to next week. Amwenda@independent.co.ug How to change Kampala (Part 2) Saturday, 19 May 2012 12:46 By Andrew M. Mwenda A combination of sound technocratic management with a good dose of political skill will do the job I argued in this column last week that any attempt by Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA) to carry out transformative reforms in our city will create high political tensions.  This is because all reform produces winners and losers. Winners will support reform and losers will become militants determined to resist it. KCCA will be conducting reforms in a context of an already polarised politics of the wider Uganda. The current government has been effective at sustaining economic growth and fostering private wealth accumulation. But it has been abysmal in the delivery of public goods and services. So, many people don’t believe in the promises of better public sector management even if many still have hope. Here is the dilemma KCCA’s Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi, faces in her reform agenda. The costs of reforming Kampala will be incurred by the losers immediately. So they are certain. This will help them overcome their collective problems and unite to defend their interests. For example, if KCCA seeks to collect trading licenses from every shop, salon, kiosk, supermarket, garage, and barber shop, the inconvenience felt by these groups will be immediate and clear. So they will organise politically through political petitions to parliament or the President or through street demonstrations and mass media campaigns to block such an effort. Meanwhile, the benefits of such a reform effort – in form of better roads, garbage collected, public gardens, orderliness in the city etc – come at a later date. So they are uncertain and actually unpredictable. Many people will make decisions based on past performance. So they may even suspect that KCCA will collect the money and not do the public services that it promises. So it is very likely that those who stand to benefit from Musisi’s reform efforts may even sympathise with traders, mechanics, etc, when demonstrating against a genuine effort to make them pay their trading licenses. Yet although these constraints are structurally obdurate, I still believe there is room for agency. To succeed at reform, Musisi will need to be more than the good technocrat that she is. She will have to develop high levels of political skill – skill to manipulate the different factions that constitute the power structure of Kampala. For instance, she will need to ally with one group (e.g. traders) at a particular point to fight another group (vendors) in the battle to promote more cleanliness and orderliness on the streets. Once that has been achieved, she would have to shift alliances, finding new partners, like professionals, to get traders to pay their trading licences. Strategically therefore, Musisi needs to avoid opening a battle on all fronts – a demand most public commentators are likely to insist she does. For example, if Musisi wants to remove kiosk owners from road reserves, she will be accused of favouring the rich who have built in wetlands. Yet if she begins with the rich and powerful, they may employ their political and financial muscle to defeat her efforts. An early defeat on a major issue can cause people to lose hope in promises of change. Tactically therefore, it is better to begin a fight where she can secure a quick and decisive win e.g. against the weaker link in the power structure – like vendors and kiosk owners. Yet vendors are only weak when you are far away from an election year. Given their numbers, they become politically powerful on the eve of elections. Musisi needs to know that she has a honeymoon with time (not term) limits. For instance, the president has confidence in her work and is determined to support her efforts. A significant section of the public is willing to give her the benefit of a doubt, an important moral and political resource for reform. If she wins a few battles as she did against Gen. David Tinyefuza now Sejusa, it will create greater confidence in her to fight other wars. It will also bolster public perception that actually things can change. However, this means Musisi has to be as adept at the management of public perceptions (politics) as she is at technocratic implementation of her objectives. The point is that Musisi has to sequence her reforms. She must begin where she can win, and win easily. This will secure supporters willing to defend her reforms. Then she can slowly but steadily escalate her wars. For example, we are four years away from the next election. If Musisi has any reform that inconveniences large groups of voters, she has to begin with that – like against vendors, hawkers, market stall and kiosk owners, barber shops, salons, taxi drivers, boda bodas, garages owners, etc. These are made of multitudes of voters. Few politicians, at least not President Yoweri Museveni, will accept any inconvenience against such popular groups in 2015. Therefore, if Musisi can kick off the war against these groups now, her record of success will give her a fund of moral authority and political clout to take on the rich and powerful who have built in wetlands, grabbed land from green areas etc in 2015. Politically, it is always better to take on the rich towards an election. They are few (so their electoral strength is weak) yet envied by many (the better to attack their privileges during election time). Of course they can fight back with money and control of the mass media. But during election time, the odds would tend to be against them. Strategically, Musisi needs to plan the calendar of her reforms early. Here she has to identify the different social forces that constitute the power structure of Uganda, specifically Kampala. Then she has to establish which alliances she needs to forge now and with whom and against whom. Then she needs to project when she can shift alliances from one particular group to fight another group. For each reform, former allies will become adversaries and previous enemies change into militants defending her actions. The aim is never to allow the evolution of a broad-based coalition of many social forces against any piece of reform she intends to implement at a particular point. Ultimately, it is the combined power of sound technocratic management backed by a good dose of political skill that will change Kampala. a mwenda@independent.co.ug