Kampala’s recurring floods are a governance failure rather than a natural disaster, according to senior road safety official Ronald Amanyire, who has warned that continued compensation of victims will not solve the underlying crisis.
Amanyire, the Principal Road Safety Officer at Uganda’s Ministry of Works and Transport, said the capital and the wider Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area are flooding because critical systems meant to manage storm water have been weakened, ignored, or captured over time.
“I read yesterday that the Office of the Prime Minister had been allocated funds to compensate traders who lost merchandise in floods,” he said, questioning the policy direction. “Shall we continue dishing out compensation endlessly when the causes of flooding are already known?”
He argued that Kampala’s flooding patterns are predictable and linked to governance choices rather than rainfall intensity. According to him, engineering solutions exist, but they have not been consistently applied or enforced.
At the centre of the problem, he pointed to the destruction of wetlands, which he described as the city’s natural drainage and water retention systems.
These ecosystems, once critical for absorbing excess water, have been heavily encroached on and converted for commercial and residential use.
“Malls, factories, and apartments now sit in places where water is supposed to flow,” he noted, adding that this has replaced natural drainage with concrete infrastructure that worsens surface runoff.
Amanyire also highlighted the state of Kampala’s drainage network, which he said remains largely outdated and under-capacity.
Many systems, he observed, were designed decades ago for a much smaller population and have not been upgraded to match current urban growth.
He further criticised urban planning decisions that allow construction across natural water channels, effectively turning roads into barriers that redirect storm water into already overwhelmed drainage lines.
Institutional fragmentation was also cited as a major challenge, with multiple agencies including KCCA, NEMA, the Ministry of Water and Environment, and the Ministry of Works sharing overlapping responsibilities.
“When everyone is responsible, no one is accountable,” he said.
Amanyire also pointed to selective enforcement, where small informal traders are evicted for blocking drainage while larger illegal developments in wetlands remain untouched.
He warned that the economic impact of flooding is significant, including destroyed property, disrupted transport, business losses, and increased public health risks.
According to him, these recurring losses amount to billions annually and reflect systemic failure.
Ultimately, he concluded that Kampala floods not because of excessive rain, but because institutional weaknesses, poor enforcement, and governance gaps have overwhelmed engineering systems designed to protect the city.