The iron lady and first ever Kampala Capital City Authority Executive Director Jenifer Ssemakula Musisi has called it quits, 7 years after the president created this special docket for her.
By this morning, following her resignation last night, several people are speculating about what could have caused the iron lady to write a whole 21 pages of resignation. While some blame her nemesis the Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago and his Councilors, others blame frustration from a certain minister (name withheld).
A few weeks ago, Mr. Lukwago told a News gathering that Mrs. Musisi and the minister for Kampala Betty Olive Namisango Kamya are useless and should not have been appointed in the first place. He even went on to explain that each time the Executive Director went abroad, people always wondered what her role was as she was the first and only city ED in the world.
So let us take you through her 21 pages of resignation and the reasons she gives.
The ED points out the political team at KCCA frustrating the work of her team (the technical team) making it difficult for her to achieve the set targets. She also says the authority is unable to fully meet the government and public expectations in city development and programmes due to inadequate funding.
Also, presence of inadequate permanent staff on account of budget limitations resulting to prolonged temporally terms of service and job insecurity leading to demotivation and high turnover of highly skilled staff has left the iron lady frustrated to the point of resigning her position. She adds that staff are not adequately facilitated in terms of tools, equipment and vehicles.
“There is inadequate political support to the efforts of the KCCA technical team to transform Kampala. Many planned city improvement plans have not received political support and therefore not been implemented” she writes.
The ED who has showed interest in stepping down on the 15th of December 2018 after 7 years at the helm of KCCA, says the nation makes heavy investment in education, training and employing professionals, but for Uganda to fully benefit from these investment, the professionals need to be allowed and supported to advise, develop and implement innovative solutions to the challenges still faced as a developing nation.
“I have over the last seven years raised these issues to the executive and legislature which have at times made some efforts to address them. However, on the whole, these challenges have not been substantially addressed, therefore hampering planned transformation programmes and expected service delivery” Musisi added.
She explains that KCCA’s initial five-year performance raised both public and government expectations of the institution but the challenges she highlights increasingly made it difficult for the authority to meet these expectations.
“On account of the above matters, I am not able to continue serving in the position of Executive Director, Kampala Capital City Authority. Your Excellency I thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve my nation both in Uganda Revenue Authority and Kampala Capital City Authority” she concludes.
The ED also thanked her team at KCCA and development partners who have supported the transformation of Kampala City.
