Museveni can’t rule beyond 2016 - Lord Mayor Lukwago

Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago during the interview on Friday in Kampala. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa. 

In Summary

Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago got another lease of life when court on Thursday upheld an injunction it had slapped on the KCCA meeting that voted to impeach him on Monday. At his home a day before the ruling, Mr Lukwago recounted to Sunday Monitor’s Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi and Frederic Musisi his troubled journey at KCCA and stopped only short of declaring his intention to challenge President Museveni in 2016.

What did you set out to do right from your first day as Lord Mayor?
On that day, after swearing in, I issued a policy statement which I thought would guide members on how we could come up with a shared vision and on how we can transform the city. The hallmark of the document was a shared vision, synergy building, and I stressed that the critical issue which we faced at that time was institutional building.

We talk about services delivery and transforming the city, but these can only be delivered by a vibrant institution called KCCA with all its organs functioning. I indeed put it in the broader picture and said we were working in a very hostile environment and that the country is at crossroads because many institutions are facing a crisis; which comes from the centre and the theme at the centre is one-man’s-rule.

I said this is where we have a problem; and that in as much as we want to build an entity which will respond to the challenges of the day, we have to contend with the challenge that our country is on the verge of becoming a failed state where institutions crumble, disintegrate and cannot function normally. It has been a very critical challenge for the last two-and-a-half years I have been in office; all my efforts have been geared to that because it is not one person to deliver the city that we want.

So the policy statement was primarily targeted at the councillors?
Yes it was to the councillors and all the technical people.

Would you say it was well received?
I really doubt if the councillors and the executive director [Jennifer Musisi] appreciated this, but some should have and were really forthcoming and pushing for this agenda.

Unfortunately, the cancer that is eating up the entire nation has not spared KCCA. And that is the one-man’s-rule I talked about earlier – personalisation of the State and all government institutions. I have always wondered how many permanent secretaries are in this country. (Ms Musisi is at the lever of permanent secretary).

You can imagine the frequent interactions between President Museveni and the accounting officer of KCCA (Ms Musisi). Is that normal, given that many accounting officers of functional institutions don’t get to meet him? All the time he has something to discuss about KCCA, it is the executive director (he meets). The ED can go there to report the Lord Mayor on any case, she can go there to report a councillor, she can report on anything.

You are saying the ED spends more time working with the President than with the people at KCCA?
I want you to get the bigger picture and I do not want to be drawn into that stereotype thinking that I am always fighting with the executive director. But the President gives policy directives to the accounting officer, which is abnormal.

There is a bottom-top arrangement if you are to reflect the will of the people in all policies made, which mandate I have. At KCCA we have different tiers at different levels. If you look at the KCCA Act, it creates a political leadership which is comprised of more than 250 leaders; you have five divisions, each of which has a mayor and on average each division urban council has got about 45 councillors. You have got below them parish leaders; you have got those at village levels; these are all political leaders whose ideas must be put in a particular perspective through my office, where they are supposed to be galvanized across the board at all levels to come up with a policy which is supposed to be implemented by the technical team.

But before you even do that, you have to be mindful that the central government has a role to play in the management of the city, so you have to ensure that the city’s views and ideas rhyme with the broader national policies. So you have to look at the National Planning Authority, the physical planning department of KCCA, NEMA, you have to build synergies around various government institutions. That administrative structure would develop synergies that would deliver the city we want.

You were elected to oversee that process…
The critical challenge we have faced is that the system is not functional. All we have seen is the entrenchment of one-man-rule so that President Museveni looks at the ED as a proxy sent to manage the city on his behalf.

In other words, they do not mind about the existence of the elected leaders. What went wrong is that the system of all other political leaders like mayors and councils being under the Lord Mayor is not functional and that is what I term multiple organ failure. That body called KCCA has got different entities like division councils and others which create systems of checks and balances because every human being is prone to excesses. That is why the accounting officer, the councillors and mayors must be checked.

Isn’t that your responsibility?
The problem is that those check points have been destroyed because you do not have functional divisional urban councils; there is no functional contracts committee which is independent of the office of the ED; we don’t have a physical planning authority as provided for in the Act; we don’t have a public accounts committee to scrutinise the accounts for accountability purposes; we don’t have committees to perform the other duties. This has been my struggle all along and for you in the media you vulgarised it and demonised me.

You have clearly outlined what you are supposed to do, but you have been accused of concentrating on politicking


I shudder to hear that we, who are demanding for institutions to be put in place, are politicking. The actual people who are politicking are Museveni and his proxies. They say the central government took over Kampala but in reality it is Museveni who personally took over.

In the tribunal, for instance, they claimed that I never signed minutes and that I failed to deliver quality services. But before anyone asks me to account about quality service delivery at KCCA, they need to answer some questions first. Where did the policies emanate from? The idea is that President Museveni calls the ED to State House whenever he wants and gives her instructions on what to do.