The recent floods that swept through downtown Kampala left many traders counting painful losses. Shops near the Nakivubo Channel were submerged, merchandise destroyed, and livelihoods thrown into uncertainty. For the men and women who toil daily in those arcades, this was more than a bad day — it was a cruel reminder of how fragile life in the city’s trading heart can be.
But as emotions flare, some voices have been quick to blame developer Hamis Kiggundu — known as Ham — whose ongoing Nakivubo redevelopment project sits right at the centre of the storm. That blame, however understandable, misses a much larger truth: flooding in downtown Kampala did not begin with Ham.
For decades, Nakivubo Channel has been a symbol of the city’s broken drainage system. Every rainy season, traders along Kisekka, Allen, and Market Streets have fought the same battle — rising water, blocked channels, and sewage overflowing into shops. Newspaper archives and city reports are full of the same headlines, year after year. The problem has always been structural.
When Ham took on the task of redeveloping the Nakivubo corridor, his vision was to modernize one of Kampala’s most chaotic spaces — to cover and channel the open sewer, clean up the surrounding markets, and create organized retail and recreational facilities. That work, naturally, comes with disruption. Development, by its nature, is not painless. Roads, bridges, and malls all require demolition, excavation, and temporary inconvenience before the benefits show.
What happened to the traders is undeniably tragic and calls for immediate assistance and better communication from the project managers. But it’s also part of the difficult transition toward a better-organized downtown. Already, Ham’s projects — from the Ham Shopping Grounds to Nakivubo Stadium’s facelift — have brought more order and formal business space to areas that were once chaotic and unsafe.
Once the drainage works are complete and the channel is fully opened, Kampala will have a cleaner, safer, and better-drained central business district. The floods will finally have a lasting solution, not just temporary patches. It’s only fair to judge Ham’s project when the dust settles and the concrete cures. For now, let’s offer sympathy to those who lost their goods — and a little patience for a development that may finally end decades of flooding downtown.
