By Fred Kayongo
The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has unveiled measures aimed at managing garbage collection across the city ahead of the second National Cleaning Day, scheduled for August 29.
Hajjat Sharifah Buzeki, the KCCA Executive Director, speaking at the permit awarding function on Friday, said the changes follow lessons learned from the first National Cleaning Day and are designed to close gaps in the routine collection and evacuation of waste from communities in Kampala.
Kampala generates between 2,000 and 2,500 tonnes of waste daily, but a significant share currently goes uncollected. To close that gap, Buzeki revealed that KCCA has contracted nine private waste collection firms to supplement the KCCA’s collection capacity.
She noted that eight of the nine companies have already secured operational permits to evacuate roughly 1,669.5 tonnes of waste a day, which is added to KCCA’s existing capacity of 500 tonnes from common-user spaces such as markets, taxi parks, health centres and schools. According to Buzeki, the authority projects a total daily collection capacity of about 2,169.5 tonnes once the ninth contract for Lubaga North is finalized.
Among the contracted private waste collectors are Nabugabo-Apdil Joint Venture Limited, Hilltop Enterprise Limited, Y, Big Seal Holdings, Ecoserve Limited, among others.
Buzeki adds that together, the collectors will bring an additional 116 trucks onto Kampala’s roads, alongside 10 new government-funded garbage trucks expected by the end of the current financial year. Under the Polluter Pays Principle enshrined in the NEMA Act, Buzeki said that waste generators are responsible for the cost of disposing of their waste.
She added that payments to the newly contracted collectors will follow rates approved by the Authority Council in October 2024, which apply to routine waste collection citywide. According to KCCA ED, informal or low-income settlements will pay one thousand shillings per 50-kilogramme bag, with one thousand shillings as the minimum charge even for partial bags.
Domestic households will pay three thousand shillings per 50-kilogramme bag, and commercial premises are to pay three shillings per 50-kilogramme bag. Large institutions such as churches, mosques, schools, temples and similar will have to pay forty shillings per truckload.
Buzeki noted the rates may be revised periodically with Council approval depending on prevailing circumstances, and that the authority will continue to bear responsibility for waste from public facilities such as markets, taxi parks, health centres and schools.
Ahead of and during the National Cleaning exercise, Buzeki said waste evacuation across Kampala’s 857 villages will follow a “bring to truck” model, under which residents store waste at home and load it directly onto collection trucks rather than leaving it along roads or verandas, a practice she said is illegal.
Households and businesses are also required to sort waste into two bins, one for organic and one for inorganic material, before bringing it to designated collection points. She also reiterated a ban on informal waste transport methods such as handcarts, bicycles and three-wheelers (locally known as tuktuks), which she said contribute to illegal dumping along roads and in drains.
Buzeki said division town clerks, local leaders, parish chiefs, solid waste officers and the contracted collectors will jointly establish waste pick-up points, set collection schedules, and draw up household inspection checklists to discourage residents from hoarding waste to avoid payment.
She said the measures are expected to eliminate illegal dump sites, speed up waste evacuation, improve accountability by clearly assigning responsibility to specific collectors and local leaders, and increase community participation through predictable collection points.
Simon Kigenyi, the Deputy KCCA Executive Director, said that those who have been using private waste collectors to evacuate their waste will only present their receipts to take their waste. Denis Ddamulira from Your Waste Company Limited, which is mandated to collect waste in Kawempe North, said that they are to start by sensitizing the community about waste sorting and proper disposal of garbage.
He urged all the residents of Kampala to support the nine companies given the mandate by KCCA to collect garbage in their communities for a cleaner city. Damulira expressed commitment to ensure that all the waste in Kawempe North is properly evacuated to improve the hygiene of the area.
