By Bwanika Joseph
Professor Pamela, you’re the Executive Chairperson of the National Planning Authority (NPA), I wish to draw your urgent attention to a matter of grave civic and environmental concern.
Under your watch, Uganda is engineering its economic future, currently mapping out the ambitious National Development Plan IV (NDP IV).
Your office holds the strategic blueprint for how our nation grows, transitions, and urbanizes.
It is precisely because of this immense national responsibility that I must call your immediate attention to a looming city tragedy: the proposed destruction of Kampala City Square, historically known as Constitutional Square to make way for commercial infrastructure.
No one can dispute the intense demographic and economic pressures facing Uganda today. Our population is growing exponentially, and the desire to expand urban development, modern infrastructure, and commercial hubs is both legitimate and necessary for our economic transition.
However, under your leadership, this developmental drive must be tempered with an uncompromising commitment to environmental protection and sustainable urban design. True development is not merely the accumulation of concrete and steel; it is the deliberate enhancement and preservation of human life.
Kampala already battles a severe environmental and public health crisis.
Our capital is consistently ranked among the cities with the worst air pollution globally. Particulate matter levels routinely exceed safe World Health Organization thresholds, trapping residents in a hazardous, toxic haze of exhaust and industrial dust.
In the midst of this public health emergency, City Square acts as one of the very few remaining functional green lungs in our central business district. It is the literal space where our suffocating city breathes, filtering pollutants and offering respite to thousands of commuting citizens daily.
We are witnessing a systemic planning failure in our suburban areas. At the outskirts of Kampala in rapidly expanding nodes like Kira, Kasangati, Sonde, Nansana playgrounds and open communal spaces are being systematically destroyed or built over.
They are being swallowed up by developers who fail to understand that a developing neighborhood requires recreational breathing room just as much as it requires housing and retail.
If your authority allows the central City Square to be cannibalized for another shopping mall, it sends a dangerous signal to local governments that no green space in Uganda is sacred or worth protecting.
Professor, look at global precedents. Progressive countries across the world are strategically preserving and expanding green spaces in their metropolises not as aesthetic luxuries, but as critical municipal infrastructure.
London has protected its Royal Parks, New York has guarded Central Park, and our neighbors in Nairobi have successfully defended and restored Uhuru Park.
These cities recognize that urban green zones offer citizens and travelers a vital sanctuary to relax, escape the concrete heat island effect, and access clean air.
They understand that a city completely stripped of its natural landscape becomes a hotbed for mental fatigue and respiratory illness.
Before a single shovel touches the soil of City Square, we must look back at our track record and honestly ask ourselves: how many spaces like this have we created in the last 40 years?
The answer is zero. Instead of creating new parks to match our exploding population, we have progressively encroached on the ones we inherited.
Kampala does not suffer from a shortage of shopping malls; it suffers from a critical deficit of foresight.
While the market pressure for commercial real estate is high, we must look at Kampala’s future through the lens of long-term environmental and psychological impact.
As a highly credentialed scholar of development studies, you know that true modernization means building a resilient city, not just a profitable one.
I urge the National Planning Authority to step in, exercise its statutory oversight, and protect City Square. Let us expand Kampala upward and outward, but let us keep our green spaces alive.
Our future generations deserve a capital city that breathes in a relaxed green spaces.
The author is a social development specialist and CEO Bridge your mind Centre.
Email; bwani.jose@gmail.com
The post Open Letter to Prof. Pamela K. Mbabazi: The Soul of Kampala cannot be replaced by a Shopping Mall appeared first on Watchdog Uganda.