Parliament has passed into law the Physical Planner Registration Bill, 2021.
The bill, passed during the plenary on Thursday, 21 April 2022, will see the establishment of Physical Planners Registration Board to provide for the registration of physical planners and a disciplinary basis for their work.
The country, preceding this law has lacked a legal framework regulating physical planners in Uganda requiring them to regulate their practice; separate qualified physical planners from quack ones and to set and monitor standard of physical planners and to support the urbanisation of the country.
Hon. Naome Kabasharira (Indep, Rushenyi County) said that Parliament created more cities that do not have substantial urban plans to support infrastructure development which she believes is linked to the lack of accredited physical plans.
“We need physical plans for these new cities otherwise if we live things to chance we are going to have sprouting slums,” she added.
Kasambya County MP, Hon. David Kabanda, stated that the problem most cities have in Uganda is physical planners who are not qualified or studied in the discipline.
“For example, Kampala City Council Authority had a head of the Physical Planning Directorate who studied agriculture but got the job purely out of favour,” he noted.
Kabanda said that the issue of political appointments to the positions of physical planning in city councils must be dealt with to further mitigate the poor planning of the cities.
The Minister for Local Government, Hon. Raphael Magyezi, proposed that a representative from the local government should sit on the board.
He said government was happy with the bill as it would solve some of the issues common today, for example, masquerading physical planners because of the lack of a legal framework.