Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has directed businessman Hamis Kiggundu’s Kiham Enterprises Ltd to immediately stop all activities along the Nakivubo Drainage Channel, citing lack of statutory approvals.
The directive followed a meeting chaired by KCCA Deputy Executive Director, Benon Kigenyi, who said Kiggundu had been instructed to remove debris caused by his construction works, restore proper stormwater flow, and ensure that the hoarded sections of the channel are maintained to avoid risks of flooding or harm to human life.
“We instructed him to halt all activities that are ongoing without the requisite statutory guidance and permission,” Kigenyi said in a statement after the meeting.
The intervention comes days after President Museveni wrote to Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja endorsing Kiggundu’s proposal to cover and redevelop the channel, a move that Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago dismissed as “illegal and fraudulent.”
While KCCA has not opposed redevelopment outright, officials emphasized that any structural alterations to the city’s main drainage system must comply with planning and environmental laws.
Environmental experts remain skeptical about covering stormwater channels. Civil engineer Apollo Buregyeya warned that placing concrete lids over Nakivubo would conceal problems rather than solve them.
“Once you cover a channel, every blockage becomes invisible. Every malfunction hides underground. Every flood hits harder. Add weak governance, and what you get is not modernization but denial,” he observed.
Buregyeya further argued that Kampala’s drainage challenges require systemic solutions rather than cosmetic fixes.
“The real choice is not between beauty and filth. It is between superficial fixes and lasting solutions. Kampala should expand upstream sewage treatment, keep sections of the swamp open as natural filters, and integrate landscaping and walkways alongside, not on top of, the channel. Beautification must not erase biology.”
The Nakivubo project has now become a flashpoint between central government support for private-led redevelopment and city authorities’ insistence on legal and ecological safeguards.
KCCA says further discussions will continue, but until statutory approvals are secured, Kiggundu’s construction remains suspended.
