Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi has handed in her resignation letter to the President, Yoweri Museveni due to what she says is failure to reconcile competing interests among other issues.
Musisi, a lawyer by profession was appointed by the President seven and a half years ago to head KCCA. She was formerly working with Uganda Revenue Authority (URA). Her three year contract has so far been extended by the President twice, since her appointment.
But in her resignation letter dated October 15, she says that it has increasingly become difficult for KCCA to achieve its main targets partly due to political interests.
“One of the main challenges has been to reconcile the competing interests between political perspectives/decisions and strategic plans, policies, regulations and work plans of the KCCA technical team,” Musisi informed the appointing authority.
She will step down effective December 15, this year.
The other problems cited by the Executive Director is the inefficiencies resulting from inadequate funding for the city Authority. This, she says, has left the city development program and service delivery demands unmet thus inability to meet government and public expectations.
She also cited inadequate permanent staff on account of budget limitations, resulting in prolonged temporary short terms of service and job insecurity.
This has led to demotivation and high turnover of highly skilled staff, Musisi says. Yet, she argues, Uganda makes heavy investments in educating, training and employing professionals.
“For the nation to fully benefit, these professionals need to be allowed and supported to advise, develop and implement innovative solutions to the challenges the country faces,” she adds.
The KCCA Executive Director who is the highest paid civil servant (earning Shs 43.7m monthly) after the Governor Bank of Uganda, also said that staff are not adequately facilitated in terms of tools, equipment and vehicles, and that there has not been adequate political support to the efforts of the technical team in its endeavor to transform Kampala.
Musisi says she has raised these issues over the last seven years numerous times to the Executive and the legislature but only a few efforts have been made to resolve them.
“On the whole, challenges have not been substantively addressed, therefore hampering planned transformation programs and expected service delivery,” Musisi says in the letter.
“On account of the above matters, I am not able to continue serving in position of Executive Director, KCCA,” she added.
Nonetheless, Musisi prides in making remarkable achievements over her seven year tenure, including growing KCCA’s asset portfolio from Shs 45billion back in 2011 to Shs 549 billion (1,350% increase) as of July 2017.
She attributes this to the recovery of assets previously misappropriated and irregularly disposed of and the acquisition of new assets. The portfolio includes prime land, buildings, school land, sports facility land, markets, public spaces and project land.
Musisi also said that during her term, KCCA established SACCOs for the different categories of its staff with the staff SACCO boasting of Shs 6.6bn, health workers (Shs 1.1bn), drivers (Shs 135m), teachers (Shs 1.7bn), law enforcement (81m) and waste management workers (Shs 472m).
She says these SACCOs have improved the lives of the staff by providing affordable credit for income generating activities.
In the area of financial management, Musisi outlines a number of achievements; establishing robust management and procurement systems which have earned KCCA credibility as well as partnerships.
She also highlights the electronic revenue collection system which she says eliminated cash transactions and eliminated corruption. Musisi states that efficiency in revenue administration has grown annual collectims from Shs 30bn in 2011/12 to Shs 84bn in 2016/17.
On infrastructure, a total 210kms of roads have been upgraded to bitumen while 500kms of gravel roads have been maintained. Traffic lights have been installed at 20 junctions in Kampala and 5,000 street lights erected.
