By KT Reporter
President Museveni while in Mpigi district where he commissioned Uganda’s petroleum products storage facility, he registered his anger at the KCCA decision to have their garbage dumping site at Buyala which is not very far from the petroleum project operated by UNOC. This was a few days ago.
Museveni rebuked the leadership of KCCA and wondered why they would be so blind to waste 100s of billions of shillings putting up their garbage dumping site so close to the country’s petroleum reserve storage facility. KCCA had relocated to Buyala, where it bought more than 220 acres of land, after its Kiteezi landfill collapsed roughly three years ago.
Saying this was unacceptable incompetence and laziness; Museveni directed the immediate closure of the KCCA land fill at Buyala for fear that one day a Kiteezi-like incident might happen. He wants to avoid that emergency by shutting down Buyala.
Now Hon Minsa Kabanda who is the Kampala metropolitan affairs minister, says she saw the problem long time ago and wrote letters asking KCCA to consider any other place to avoid endangering the petroleum storage facility nearby but she was totally ignored. Minsa Kabanda says when the KCCA officials ignored her, she ignored them and let the matter go on but deep inside her heart she knew this wasn’t going to last long.
Minsa Kabanda cleaned her name in a radio interview with CBS news editor Alex Nsubuga who had asked her to resign or apologize for causing the tax payer to lose so much money through the wrong Buyala land they bought. Nsubuga reminded her how NEMA and NFA warned against Buyala land two years ago but her ministry ignored them. Minsa Kabanda denied all this and said instead the two entities cleared Buyala to be the site to host the KCCA landfill.
The minister said they have no option but to relocate looking for another safer land as was directed by the president. Minsa Kabanda added that they will go to cabinet and get another money to find a better location or even get someone to swap with.
“There are already people I have in mind who might be open to swapping. They give us their land some far away place and we give them Buyala. If that doesn’t happen, KCCA will get money to buy elsewhere and use the land at Buyala for any of our other project that can be compatible with being near the petroleum products storage facility belonging to UNOC.” Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com.
