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Ex-VP rallies community to block proposed garbage site by KCCA
Former Vice President Dr. Specioza Wandira Kazibwe
Uganda’s former Vice President Dr. Specioza Wandira Kazibwe has rallied the people of Ddundu in Mukono district to rise up and force Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to abandon plans of opening up a new landfill in the area saying the waste will cause numerous health complications that could arise from air and water pollution.
Speaking in a community meeting held recently, a combative Dr. Kazibwe referenced her credentials as a trained medical doctor and a researcher when she argued that the garbage that KCCA plans to dump in Ddundu will come with what she refers to as terrible health hazards.
She lectured how the garbage trucks carry alongside rubbish terrible things such as dead babies, dead animals, medical waste, expired drugs as well as polythene bags, all of which she said will make the place unlivable.
” As a medic I can’t sit idly by with folded arms as KCCA drives in trucks of garbage to be carelessly dumped in a village I reside in,” Dr Kazibwe stated as she rallied the locals to join her and firmly resist KCCA’s schemes aimed at turning Ddundu into ‘another filthy Kiteezi’.
The former Vice President clad in a maroon overflowing kitenge with golden patches, cautioned the locals not to accept to be swayed by favors being dangled by KCCA such as money from sorting rubbish to give in to what she called KCCA dangerous machinations.
The senior citizen then educated how the health hazards posed by garbage of the magnitude collected in Kampala and it’s environs far outweighs the ‘small’ money earned from sorting such rubbish.
Kazibwe’s warning was reinforced by the testimony of one former resident of the now filthy Kiteeze landfill.
Bishop Hannington Mutebi, the assistant bishop of Kampala diocese, said he was forced to leave Nameere, a village nearby Kiteezi used by KCCA for many decades as a dumping site for all the rubbish collected from around Kampala.
Kiteezi hosts a notoriously massive filthy garbage site upon which the Kampala city authorities keep piling trucks of rubbish upon trucks of rubbish on a daily basis. The locality is located a few miles after Mpereerwe along the dusty road branching off from Gayaza road going through Nangabo and ends at Matugga.
Nameere where the bishop fled from lies several miles apart from Kiteezi but the stench from the garbage site reaches the village and even places beyond it.
In a very somber tone, Bishop Mutebi narrated that he relocated to Ddundu to escape the filth of Kiteezi, only to learn that KCCA intends to stalk him with the very stench that drove him away.
“I quit Nameere in 2013 because of the terrible stench emitted from rubbish that KCCA dumps in Kiteezi. And now see, KCCA is moving to bring the rubbish right where I relocated”, the man of God dejectedly revealed.
The man of God explained further that the location of KCCA’s dumping site at Ddundu on a hill overlooking two rivers Lwajjali and Musaale that provides drinking water for thousands of people and livestock, make it even more intolerable.
Rev. Mutebi submitted that the waste water from the landfill will leach into the ground water reserves upon which the community depends for their domestic as well as feeding their livestock.
The submissions and testimonies of the former vice president and the religious leader, appeared to have energized the community to vow to block the plan.
Alex Lubwama, the parish chairman in the area also used the same platform to rally residents to learn lessons from the stone quarry operators who came to the area ten years ago dangling promises of jobs but which promises never materialized.
Area MP, Abdallah Kiwanuka Kayongo also warned the KCCA authorities to shelve plans of dumping waste in Ddundu with immediate effect and take the same everywhere because the locality is densely populated to host a garbage site.
The lawmaker cautioned he will not hesitate one minute to employ his legal prowess against KCCA whose elected leader is his pal and mentor, Lord Mayor Hajj Ssaalongo Erias Lukwago, another hard-nosed lawyer.
At the end of the day, each one of the residents present was in a combative mood already, swearing for a fight with whoever sets foot in their locality for purposes of dumping garbage there.
About KCCA and Ddundu
KCCA acquired a 135 acre piece of land at Ddundu in Mukono district. Last year KCCA’s Executive Director toured the place and revealed plans to start dumping there garbage in 2022 to replace the old landfill in Kiteezi.
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