“For the sake of the future of the city and for the sake of all the investments that we are making in the city, let us stay away from the swamps,” Lira City Council-City Council Mayor Mr. Sam Atul, representing authorities, is sounding the alarm over the continued encroachment of wetlands, warning that it could block rainwater drainage channels and lead to severe flooding.
Mr. Atul’s caution is rooted in the recent devastating floods in Kampala City, which laid the city suddenly bare.
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Emphasizing that climate change is a real and present threat, adding that it’s essential for the community to come together to protect the environment.
“Let us restrain ourselves. Let’s think about tomorrow. This challenge of climate change is real; it’s not going to spare any part of the world,” Atul cautioned.
The mayor also cried about the issue of garbage disposal, citing instances where people dump waste into roadside drainage channels, causing blockages and flooding.
“There are people who have businesses who don’t even want to manage their own garbage. They dump it anywhere. So, when it rains, they find themselves in our drainage channels,” Atul explained.
Quickly he cited Kwania Road near the pipe as an example of an area that experiences heavy flooding, which occasionally submerges the road.
“Whereas our people are always working on the drainage, the problem is that the investments being done around are making the drainage difficult to sustain and manage,” he said.
However, Mr. Bazil Edwoko, chairperson of Lira market vendors, responded that , “There is nothing I can do about that. Collecting garbage is not my work, but the city council, which collects revenue from us,” he said.
In a bid to address the city’s infrastructure challenges, the city council has acquired a new grader worth Shs1.2 billion. Atul believes this will significantly improve road maintenance, which has been hindered by the lack of equipment.
“The coming of this grader will improve maintenance work on our roads… This will relieve us in one perspective,” he said.
The city council had been spending part of the Shs1 billion annual allocation for road maintenance on hiring equipment. Atul explained that this limited their ability to do quality work, as they had to rush to complete tasks within a limited timeframe.
“Because you have to cover more distance, you end up doing work that could be questionable. But also, the most difficult scenario is where the day is affected by weather. The team that we hire from, for them, they don’t count hours. So, for us, this is a big change for the City Council. And it will be good for the population here,” Mr. Atul said.
Mr. Alex Okello, a resident of Adyel Kasubi Cell in Adyel Ward, Lira City West, is hopeful that the new equipment will bring much-needed relief to the city’s roads, which were severely damaged by heavy rains last year.
“Let the city authorities start the work from here. Our roads are really very bad, and with the current rainy season, if nothing is done, this will greatly affect our children from walking to school because some of them can easily fall in the holes and break their legs,” he appealed.
Garbage management in urban areas remains a challenge due to the difficulty in identifying those responsible for dumping waste in drainage channels, often under the cover of darkness.
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