The Price of Corruption

Central Kampala as it is today

Living in Kampala, a hustling, bustling city of a million plus Ugandans, Kenyans, Rwandans, Congolese and expats from around the Globe sometimes makes me thing about how cities develop from towns.  It was only 50 years ago that Uganda gained independence and moved the capital from Entebbe on the lake up to the road to its present day location.  Peatfield & Bodgener architects were flown in from the UK to design the new parliament and the double decker buses ran people between home and their place of work.  Now, half a century down the line, the city is overcrowded and in danger of sprawling beyond the current city limits as more people from the countryside flock to the bright lights in search of ‘easy money.’ 

Kampala does have its charm in certain ways though.  True the architecture is not up to scratch and the taxi’s clog the streets causing horrendous traffic; where cars will race into a jam, switch off their engines and wait for it to detangle itself, but there are certain pockets where you can see potential if only there was some weight behind the concepts.  The cancer that is the industrial estate is being slowly moved to the outskirts of the city and there are rumours that other industries are being forced to relocate by the local city council.  My initial hope was that this might give rise to some public green spaces to act as new lungs to rid the city of the smog and noise.  Places where the emerging middle class and the everyman Uganda can all come to share the shade of big African trees together without the stigma of the developing class system.  Kids can play on the acres of grass and even Aussie NGO volunteers can barbeque in peace surrounded by nature in the heart of the city. 

A nice idea maybe, but as we arrived at the Kololo Airstrip/Independence Park last Sunday to take the dog for a run, our path was blocked by three military trucks and a ribbon of blue metal hoarding stretching around the park.  On consultation it turns out that the UPDF (military construction wing) has been drafted in to ‘re’develop the space into yet another business park in time for the Jubilee celebrations.  Now that Centenary Park is a shopping mall and Constitution Square off limits, this action condemns Kampala’s last public green-space to the history books and leaves the residents with nowhere to walk, play, run and relax, away from the boda bodas and other lethal traffic of the city streets.  Initially this left me with a bubbling anger at the short sighted and frankly greedy nature of this move, and made me contemplate the potential further loses that could befall the Kampala cricket oval or the Kyadondo Rugby Ground.  This then turned to thoughts of other cities around the World and what made them great. 

What Central Kampala could look like with a long green public space winding through the middle

When you think of New York, Central Park springs to mind.  London too is famous for its parks, with thousands of people using Green, Hyde and St James’s every day.  However when it comes to KLA there seems to be this insistence to throw up commercial structures in an attempt to improve the city though cash generation in shopping and hotel leisure centres rather than good old fashioned natural, open and above all; green public spaces.  So when I was sat in traffic in the other day staring down the rarely used train tracks I could imagine a forward thinking Major trying to leave a legacy in this city like in Brazils Curitiba, helping improve the quality of life for his populace…but then again, someone did once tell me ‘politicians aren’t in the job to remain poor.’