Sacked Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) executive director, Dorothy Kisaka, her deputy David Luyimbazi and Director of Public Health, Dr Daniel Okello have been detained at CID headquarters in Kampala where they had reported for questioning over their alleged criminal negligence that resulted into the death of at least 35 people when garbage collapsed on houses at Kiteezi landfill.
The three appeared at CID today (October 16) and were questioned for hours before being detained, according to police spokesperson, ACP Rusoke Kituuma.
“As we communicated on Monday, October 14, 2024, that we had summoned former KCCA Executive Director Dorothy Kisaka, former Deputy Executive Director David Luyimbazi, and former Director of Public Health and Environment, Dr Daniel Okello. They appeared at the CID headquarters today, October 16, 2024 and engaged with our team,” ACP Kituuma said.
Police said they will be arraigned in court and charged.
“Arising from the ongoing prosecution-led investigation, the three former officials of KCCA have been detained and will be arraigned before courts of law,” ACP Kituuma added in a statement posted on police X handle without revealing when they will be taken to court.
Ms Kisaka assumed office on July 23, 2020 following an initial recommendation by President Museveni and subsequent approval by the Public Service Commission.
As per the KCCA Act 2011, her responsibilities, among other roles, included overseeing the delivery of quality services within Kampala City, promoting order and trade in the city, managing public funds of the Authority and providing technical advisory to the Authority.
Ms Kisaka replaced Ms Jennifer Musisi, who resigned in 2018.
The September 24 press statement by State House said President Museveni dismissed KCCA top officials following the Inspector General of Government’s (IGG) report on the Kiteezi landfill disaster.
Although Ms Kisaka’s sacking was precipitated by the August 10 Kiteezi incident that claimed the lives of 35 people and left property worth millions of shillings destroyed, analysts say there were also other underlying causes.
“I would not necessarily say her leadership and style of administration is to blame, we need to look at the general public administration system in the country and the resource allocation, which has been an issue for a very long time,” Ms Hannah Muzee told Monitor in an interview yesterday.
Ms Muzee, a part time lecturer at Kyambogo University’s Department of Political Science and Public Administration, said Ms Kisaka could have suffered under the weight of these other factors, which were clearly beyond her control.
The lecturer references the time Ms Kisaka said the Authority was financially constrained to repair the poor roads in the city. This was during the height of the 2023 Kampala Pothole Exhibition on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that was showcasing the awful states of roads in the capital.
Following the heat from the exhibition, Ms Kisaka later told journalists that KCCA needed anywhere between Shs75b and Shs100b annually to effectively maintain roads yet they only got Shs26b for the task.
Despite telling Ugandans that the Authority was financially constrained, only results mattered to them. Ms Kisaka, to a section of other Ugandans, was seen as not aggressive enough to push and demand resources for running activities designated under her docket.
“That job needed an aggressive and hard-hitting personality, which I did not see in Dorothy. Lack of these traits, I believe, also contributed towards her downfall. You cannot just continue playing softball when your house is under fire. She needed to have fought harder,” Mr Robert Ssali, a student of International Relations and Diplomacy, said.
