A few weeks ago, the internet in Uganda went gaga with a photo of a woman raising her hand, while another holding a toddler who was busy breastfeeding. The woman was in distress as her kiosk was being loaded on a truck with Kenyan motor registration license plates. People said it was photo of the year. To be honest, it is a very powerful image and lives to the axiom that a picture says a thousand words.
Some people offered to help the woman. Others said a lot of stuff about the ongoing countrywide campaign to remove informal structures from road reserves and elsewhere. The photographer was the “most wanted person.”
It turned out the image was made through prompting artificial intelligence applications. What AI won’t do!! Anyway, Uganda is one of those countries where everyone is either a business owner or trying to start one or has ever started one. We are labelled, by some international organisations, the most entrepreneurial country in the world.
But most of our businesses are small, micro small or something lower. A kiosk here, a stall there, a bench where you can polish and shine shoes or simply sit and wait for customers and sell them something that you pick from a shop that you pretend to own. It is called kuyiriba in Kampala speak. With the coming of age of the internet, kuyiriba is also very much alive online.
However, kiosks and stalls on streets, road reserves and everywhere you turn, although a big source of employment in the informal sector, are also an eyesore. They create a slummy and unsafe environment for both the people who own them and their customers. The government decided that it had seen enough and instructed their removal (though that order has since been halted).
Imagine you are driving on a highway that connects Uganda to Kenya, and perhaps the busiest in the country given our reliance on the Kenyan port of Mombasa, and all of sudden you see hundreds of stalls selling waragi between Kakira and Magamaga where largely taxis and trucks stop, “recharge” and continue to wherever. What message would visitors to Uganda through that route be thinking? Drink driving makes our roads unsafe.
What about those visitors who were using the old Kampala-Entebbe Road? They give an impression of a very poor economy. Most of the remaining shops won’t do us any justice either. Impression is sometimes everything.
In the meantime, I hope they can ask the property owners to at least pave their front yards and apply some fresh coats of water-resistant paint. The aging roofs could be replaced too.
Those who can’t improve these properties could be asked to sell them to those who can. Alternatively, government can acquire them through fair compensations, similar way they do with the right of way while constructing roads. The government would then make a masterplan of the area complete with architectural plans and invite those with money to buy the land from the government and invest. The new investors would not be allowed to change the plan to whatever they want.
The government would get the money by issuing municipal or infrastructure bonds. Saccos and investment clubs, individuals and others players would oversubscribe. And then they would find the money to buy the masterplans and do the investments in record time. Tax incentives could be provided.
The masterplan would include acquisition of large areas where markets would be established so the kiosk and stall owners would be shifted there. Flea and mobile markets would also operate in such areas instead of doing so in road reserves. Taxi and bus stop areas would be identified and even future train stations. Cycling lanes in some areas as well.
Kampala and many upcoming urban areas don’t have open areas. This way, some areas would be dedicated to that among other amenities that make cities livable.
Ugandans would have to accept that they can’t get whatever they want around the corner. Every little corner can’t be boda stage or taxi park or a temporary eatery every 7.00pm. People would have to learn to walk or even drive a bit for what they need such as boarding a taxi or getting some groceries. Every little front yard can’t be a kiosk or boutique of used dresses. The global cities we admire are designed that way. We have the tools to do that.
The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com
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