It has been raining heavily in Kampala this season, Kampala is a city of seven hills meaning that one either lives on the hill or in the valley. The hills are occupied by the rich and affluent while the lower class occupying the valleys which are generally swampy areas.

These areas densely populated with a poorly planned housing which are bearable during the dry season, however with the rain comes the flooding.

Walking around the slums of Kisenyi, one will notice that the buildings have a raised slab that acts as a barrier towards the floods. however, during the rainy season, the water still finds its way past the barrier into houses and business premises in the area.

If it rains at night, the residents of this area are reported to spend their nights standing in the floods, they watch on helplessly as the rains sweep away their property, lives have been reported lost during these floods.

After the rains, residents of these areas are seen using containers to pour out water from their premises, this is their routine during the rainy season which can last for two months until they get some relief when the rains pass.

One may wonder why these people simply do not relocate to drier places and get a permanent solution to their predicament, well, to most of them this is home, they were born and bred in this environment and this is all they know. For others, it’s simply a question of economics.

Accommodation in these areas is cheap and all they can afford at the moment, so they have to painfully e ndure the floods until they can afford to move. For business people, it makes economic sense to rent and run a business in these slum areas, since they are highly populated and the rent is cheap, they make high returns here and consider the floods as a minor inconvenience in comparison to the benefits they reap.

Finally, we must not forget to blame our government, according to the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), that is mandated to ensure that our environment is protected and all developments checked to ensure that they do not encroach on our environment, swamps are protected areas.

One wonders who is selling land to the landowners in these swampy areas and why is NEMA looking on as this problem escalates to crisis proportions? At what point will the government intervene and possibly resettle these slum dwellers to drylands?