Kampala City of Floods, Potholes and Jams

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Three things defined Kampala in 2006: traffic jams, potholes and floods. Heavy traffic and sustained rainfall in the last quarter of 2006 as well inaction from authorities have turned the roads in Kampala into a massive stretch of potholes.

Just before Christmas 2006, the Minister of Works announced that the central government is taking over the maintenance of a number of roads in the city. The minister’s announcement is little comfort considering that the same ministry has been overseeing the repair of a section of road leading out of the city in Nateete. The Nateete road repair ‘has not been’ going on for the last 1 year. What the contractor, who was hired by the Ministry of Works, did was to scrape off the tarmac layer and make a bad situation worse.

If Kampala is to successfully host the Common Wealth Head of Government Meeting in 2007 and the residents whose homes and businesses have suffered from the floods are to regain their livelihood, then a miracle is needed to put the roads in order and get rid of the recurrent floods that engulf the city whenever there is a downpour.

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