A few years ago, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, the amiable Mr. Ramathan Ggoobi, appearing on a television show, urged the citizens of Kampala to brace themselves because the whole of Kampala was going to be a construction site.
Indeed, most of Kampala’s suburbs, the inlets into and outlets out of the city today, are booming with construction works. This is a good thing. Kampala, our country’s heartbeat and the engine of economic productivity, has wasted away over the last two decades. It feels like a jungle, both literally and figuratively. A few steps from State House Nakasero, the Supreme Court and Judiciary head office and Parliament, it is not uncommon to walk on dark alleys because street lights have mood swings.
How is it possible, dear brethren, in the 21st century of artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics, that adults of sound mind, can live in a dungeon like this and call it a capital city? It is, therefore, a sigh of relief that the government and its development partners as well as financiers, are finally getting some roads fixed. Kudos, Mr. Ggoobi for delivering on the promise to make Kampala a construction site.
However, the story of mankind is one of inherent imperfections and incongruities. What is meant to be development has come at a colossal cost to segments of the business community. The situation is so dire that the government ought to rethink its compensation approach for project affected persons to include business enterprises rendered idle, nay dead, on account of stalled or slow road works.
Several businesses (restaurants, bars, pharmacies, grocery stalls, walk-in shops and supermarkets) in the proximity of these projects have suffered greater loss and uncertainty than they did during the Corona Virus pandemic when the country was locked down and yet the government’s compensation approach for PAPs doesn’t consider them as such. An online source, LawInsider, defines PAPs as, “any person who, as a result of the implementation of a project, loses the right to own, use, or otherwise benefit from a built structure, land (residential, agricultural, or pasture), annual or perennial crops and trees, or any other fixed or moveable asset, either in full or in part, permanently or temporarily, business, occupation, work, place of residence or habitat adversely affected; or standard of living adversely affected.” This is a more nuanced and liberal approach that Uganda ought to adopt when determining who gets compensated for these projects, especially in the unique context of the capital city.
A friend, a doctor who runs a skin clinic in one of the suburbs, told me he can hardly meet his obligations, from salaries to tax compliance because for three years, the Bugolobi Road network has been going through repair. For how long will it remain a construction site? Only the gods can hazard a guess.
This doctor has watched a pharmacy next-door close shop and had to comfort a supermarket owner who broke down because he was losing property to the bank on account of un-ending road works which have made it impossible for business to continue as customers can hardly access the supermarket. This state of affairs is not the fault of the state nor its contractors. Some eggs have to be broken if the chef is to deliver breakfast. Granted.
However, there is a strong case, one can safely argue, for compensation from the state arising from business loss on account of these road works. The government already compensates property owners affected by a project corridor. I submit that the scope of ‘project affected persons’ ought to be more liberal and exhaustive as to include business directly and immediately affected by these road works especially those that can genuinely prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the construction works and their business loss.
These are real people with families to feed, others with bank loan obligations to meet. They employ Ugandan citizens and pay tax to the government for our common good. Some are run or owned by single mothers trying their luck in self-employment thanks to the hardship of finding a job. That kiosk selling molokony in Najjera or little salon in Kira- Mulawa, is all she has. A project that kills that life-and-death hustle could mean a child failing to go to school.
A package under the budget for project affected persons ought to be expanded to consider these businesses.
One Kenyan-owned nyama choma restaurant in Bugolobi and another fast-foods eatery in Kira, that I personally know, have had to shut doors because customers can’t dine in the middle of clouds of dust. That this goes on for years as project completion timelines drag beyond the earlier publicised completion dates, for all sorts of reasons, including delayed payments from government, leaves business owners in even more uncertainty.
Given the fact that, for various reasons, there is delay in project progress, sometimes going into years, and contractors sometimes demobilize equipment as they await government to make good on payment for work done and certified, who shall atone for this business loss?
As our Bacwezi ancestors used to say, equity will not suffer a wrong without a remedy. There is, I beg to submit, a strong case, for these small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to be compensated as project affected persons. Will that escalate road construction costs in Kampala? Yes, but of course, the government has money, a lot of it, baby! It can afford to lose a few more billions in the interest of sustaining our business community affected by Kampala’s unending road works. It is good economics to keep the lights on for our SMEs and to ensure that our small income earners remain afloat as we strive to fill Kampala’s potholes. In African community etiquette, it is good manners that when your cattle spoil a neighbour’s cassava garden while grazing, you compensate the fellow or at least say ‘sorry’. Development comes at a cost but it is also possible for development to have a human face, heart and mind.
Ivan Okuda is an Energy and Construction Lawyer based at Anguria & Co. Advocates and a Fellow of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.
This article was first published in the Daily Monitor Newspaper