The Ugandan government has earmarked Nakigalala area along the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway for the establishment of a satellite city with an aim of decongesting the capital, Kampala.
According to the State Minister for Urban Development, Mr. Isaac Musumba, Nakigalala will be the first ultra-modern city in Uganda with three more to follow.
“In this Satellite city development plan, the government’s role is to identify the land and invite experts to work on the physical development master plan to allow for the construction of the buildings,” Mr. Musumba said.
The Minister said that the government has invited a team of consultants seconded by the Malaysian government to plan for the satellite city adding that the actual development of the 1200 hectare land will be done by the private sector.
“The government identified the land and talked to the owner who is willing to sell to those investors who want to construct houses that are fitting the plan that will be handed to government by the consultant engineers. The government will not have to spend any money on land since the city will be built by private developers,” Mr. Musumba said.
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The master plan
The satellite city’s master plan and design process being worked on by consultants from Malaysian Incorporated Services, Berhad will consume a tune of US $2m; a grant from the Malaysian government.
While opening a day’s interactive workshop between the Malaysian consultants and selected local technocrats, Mr. Musumba warned that government will not accept Nakigalala to be a ‘Chinese city’ by allowing only investors from the Asian countries to build houses on the expense of local investors.
Ms. Norliza Hashim, the Director of Malaysian Incorporated Services Berhad who heads the consultancy team, said that the government of Uganda approached its Malaysian counterpart to assist in designing the master plan for the Satellite city of Nakigalala.
“The government of Uganda sent officials to Malaysia and we signed a memorandum of understanding in December last year and we are supposed to do the work in six months before the Master Plan is approved by cabinet in one year’s time,” Ms. Hashim said.
Achieving vision 2040
She said that Malaysia managed to construct different Satellite cities to relieve the capital Kuala Lampur of congestion and informal settlements because there were consistent policies towards implementing the Vision 2020 which came into force in 1991.
About Uganda’s potential to pull off the project, Ms. Hashim said what is needed is to have a legal framework in place and ensure that it is being followed to implement the project.
She also said that Uganda’s Vision 2040 ‘gives hope for Uganda’ because it has strong plans that if implemented, the country will be moving in the same direction that Malaysia took to become a developed country in 30 years.
Great idea but the government’s use of powerful individuals to make fake land titles and steal private citizens land is worrying. Ssisa area is a good example. Ssisa hill overlooks the northern shores of lake Victoria and is located behind Akright hill Bwebajja in Wakiso district. This hill is also part of the ambitious satellite city project. A group of individuals who include a former prime minister of Toro, individuals from the Uganda Statehouse with connections to the first family on first learning about this project proposal Started scrambling for that land legitimately owned by mostly absentee landlords living both in Uganda and abroad. The plan involved faking titles to large swaths of land in square miles. They’ve bribed individuals working at the Entebbe and in some cases Wakiso land offices. They have also attempted to compromise individuals working on the Bamugemeire land commission. They’ve spent and have shown intent to spend billions of shillings to attain their goal. Fortunately, their efforts are all going to drain as they are naively using clearly counterfeited documents and individuals with little Or no knowledge about the history of the land in question to attain their objective. While the government’s intentions are genuine and positive, the means and individuals they’re using to reach the fruition of the satellite city project is going to be its very undoing. This project will never take off until the land grabbers are curtailed and legitimate land owners are engaged. Interestingly some of the legitimate owners of this land are senior government officials. What remains to be seen is how they will maneuver all opposing factions and stakeholders to attain their goal.
The idea of setting up a satellite city in Uganda is wonderful and welcome and indeed it has long been overdue. Our neighbors Kenya are by far advanced in satellite cities development and we can learn a lot from their experience. The problem with Uganda is that we find it difficult to consult our neighbors who are most willing to help us appreciate the difficulties involved in the development of some modern projects and instead seek advice from other “developing countries”, who have little interest in seeing us develop. Kenya stands to gain a lot from our developments because they are part of us and are members of the East African Community. Please let us seek their advice.