By Mulengera Reporters
Hajji Hassan Bulwadda, one of the young billionaires in Uganda’s real estate universe, has proposed to invest $125m (roughly Shs400bn) to redevelop Kampala City Square.
His proposal has been backed by President Museveni who has written a letter directing Kampala Minister Minsa Kabanda to harmonize with all stakeholders and get back to him with a report on the viability of Bulwadda’s plan.
The businessman intends to transform the City Square into a commercial complex while preserving its greenery and enhancing public recreational capabilities of the 2-acre facility.
However, the state minister for tourism Susan Nakawuki, has vowed to lead the war against the same proposal. As of Friday, Nakawuki was looking for the president to give an appointment for her to go meet him and make her case. It’s unclear why Nakawuki is daring to stand up to the president whose views she has always loyally followed.
Nakawuki’s concerns relate to the fact that city square has a well gazetted monument which she thinks is good for tourism. She isn’t uninterested in listening to the developer’s promise to preserve the monument and even enhance it and the greenery features of the current city square.
Nakawuki has suffocated the views of her boss old man Tom Butiime regarding this issue of city square redevelopment and she wants to be the one to lead the ministry’s position opposing the president’s willingness to have Bulwadda sink up to USD125m to redevelop the square while creating recreational facilities, complying with environmental concerns while creating jobs and money-making opportunities for his fellow Kampalans.
It remains to be seen how Museveni is going to respond to and manage growing resistance on the city square proposal as is now being spearheaded by Nakawuki and Kyofa Togabye Kabuye both of whom are junior state ministers in his government. Will the big man from Rwakitura take offence and punish them via being dropped at a future cabinet reshuffle? We can only guess while watching the space to see how it all ends.
