By Martha G
Kampala dwellers are sitting on a sanitation death trap that snakes its way through the city centre from the foothills of Makerere hill to Murchison Bay on the shores of Lake Victoria, a distance of nine kilometres.
Originally constructed as a major open drainage channel that evacuates about 95 per cent of the waste and flood water from Kampala towards swamps near Africa’s largest fresh water lake, years of little-to-no maintenance have left the Nakivubo channel choking on the stench of death and human waste.
The Spokesperson of Kampala Metropolitan Police, Luke Owoyesigire, confirms that the Channel has become a death trap, with the Police retrieving dead bodies from it in the recent part, especially on Sixth Street and along Namuwongo, a heavily populated Kampala urban sprawl adjacent to Industrial Area and Soweto slum in Makindye.
“It is true we have recovered some dead bodies along the Nakivubo channel. When we do, we take them to Mulago [national referral hospital] mortuary as we identify both the victims and their relatives,” he said.
Some of the victims over the last 12 months were a woman who the Police could not identify, as well as two men. One of the victims, who worked around Clock Tower, was swept away by a heavy downpour. Friends chased after the body and it was recovered at Namuwongo.
The former local chairman of Yoka zone in Soweto slum, Namuwongo Fred Mwesige, says he suspects some of the victims to be drug addicts, many of who are often seen sleeping near the channel.
“We do not know where they come from but I suspect these to be drug addicts who water sweeps away when the rains fall. We have never recovered women. All of them are men. When we recover the bodies, police takes them to Mulago mortuary,” he noted.
John Mugisha, a resident of Namuwongo, said because the channel has also suffered blockages due to poor maintenance. He notes that whenever there is a heavy down pour, a lot of garbage gets stuck along the water pathway, which stops water from flowing to its final destination.
According to Mugisha, a lot of the blockages are caused by the polythene bags, human waste and other forms of garbage that casual workers from the Industrial Area and residents of Namuwongo dispose into the channel. He further adds that during rainy season, a lot of wastes come from
different areas and diverts to the channel, including remains of dead dogs, goats, and ducks.
“We all use this channel,” says Mugisha. “The water is very dirty because people dump all kinds of waste into it. Some of the toilets at Soweto [slum] are constructed close to the channel and instead of using the toilets, the people dump their waste in the water,” says Mugisha.
Former local councillor Mwesige says that many of the area residents often opt to use “flying toilets” [a euphemism for defecating in polythene bags and throwing them into the channel] in the night because they don’t have permanent toilet facilities.
Mwesige adds that all the seven zones that make up Soweto slum have about 50,000 people, many of who don’t have toilet facilities. The seven zones that make up Soweto are Industrial Area View, Go-Down, Kasanvu, Namuwongo B, Namuwongo A, Masengere and Yoka.
“We have written several letters to Kampala Capital City Authority asking them to help us clean the channel but we have not heard feedback from them. Last month we also wrote to them. We have complained but no help. When it rains heavily, it becomes worse, water even dumps dead bodies here so we don’t know what to do,” he says.
The director for engineering and technical services at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Justus Akankwasa, admits that the disposal of human waste has been the commonest problem in Soweto. He concedes that
residents have written several letters to remind KCCA over the drainage blockages in vain.
“Those people use the drainage channel to dump their solid waste because most of them have no toilets. In fact, they have been building the toilets next to the drainage but we have demolished all of them,” he says.
According to Akankwasa, the situation is further compounded by the fact that ever since some people got displaced from the railway line reserve land in 2014, many of them have opted to construct makeshift houses on the Nakivubo channel reserve land.
“We cannot remove silt because there is nowhere our machine can pass to
clean it. The residents in Namuwongo know they have encroached on the water reserve [land],” he noted.
The drainage engineer at KCCA, Joan Magayane, explains that although the sewer is supposed to be cleaned every quarter, about four quarters of a financial year have gone by without any cleaning work being done.
But even where the City authorities have undertaken some maintenance work, it has been half-hearted at best. For instance, between Bugolobi and Namuwongo where KCCA has constructed a small bridge as a shortcut from Namuwongo to Bugolobi, it has already fallen apart and cars no longer use it. The water is stagnant with some obstacles and sand sacks.
Magayane explained that the budget for city drainage is very small, meaning that KCCA is unable to undertake work to the magnitude that was accomplished the last time the government secured World Bank funding for revamping the Nakivubo Channel.
The city drainage engineer also decried the encroachment on the water reserve land, which makes accessibility using the appropriate drainage vehicles next to impossible.
“There is a lot of encroachment on the water reserve,” she said. “These people are supposed to build 10-15 meters away from the channel but most of them assault us while at work. Accessing the drainage with a machine is hard.”
In 2010, a study into the pollution on the Nakivubo Channel said there is “a high degree of pollution caused by discharge of waste from slums, markets, schools, shops and restaurants, solids carried by storm waters and industries.” The study, carried out by four engineers, recommended that the communities be provided with Ecosan toilets as an alternative to latrines, close monitoring of industries and pre-treatment of the water.
“The level of pollution in the water could cause serious infection; it is therefore recommended that the public be denied access to the channel by constructing a fence around it for the whole of its length,” said the study report. However, to-date, KCCA has not taken up those recommendations.
