KAMPALA – The physical plan of Kampala City can be improved, the Executive Director, National Planning Authority, Dr Joseph Muvawala, has said.

He, however, cautioned that the improvement will not be optimal due to the unplanned infrastructure development in the city.

Muvawala made the remarks while appearing before the Committee on Lands on Wednesday, 03 September 2025 at Parliament House.

“We have to ensure that there are adequate resources for the new 10 cities countrywide, accompanied by detailed physical plans then we can come back and re-organise Kampala City,” he said.

According to Muvawala, development without physical plans is expensive and painful, saying that the Ugandan economy loses an estimated four percent of its Gross Domestic Product annually to traffic jam.

“The principle of maintaining integrated physical planning should be maintained for the country to have organised cities and towns,” he said.

Muvawala said that successful physical planning entails clear definition of roles of the various players, stating that NPA should be charged with preparing national and regional physical plans, while the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development is responsible for regulation and enforcement and the Local Governments supervise at district level.

“Physical planning does not work with politics. Sometimes we hide behind politics to do wrong things. Politics is not our problem, our problem is enforcement. We have good plans but we do not enforce them,” he added.

Muvawala’s remarks followed a concern raised by Members of Parliament (MPs) over the alarming state of Kampala City’s infrastructure.

“The country is a mess right now. Can this wrong be undone? What can we do to improve with minimal impact on what is existing. Give us a better approach,” said Andrew Ojok, the committee deputy chairperson.

“Is there a future for this city? Can Kampala be re-planned based on what is happening,” Pallisa District Woman Representative, Kevin Kaala, asked.

Dennis Nyangweso (Indep., Samia Bugwe Central County) encouraged NPA to benchmark from neighbouring countries to improve Kampala’s physical plans.

“Have you researched on how neighbouring countries like Rwanda are succeeding in physical planning? We need to know what they are doing so that we can borrow a leaf,” said Nyangweso.

Meanwhile, Muvawala urged legislators to ensure that the proposed Valuation Bill standardises the land valuation system, saying that there are irregularities in the valuation process and disclosure of compensation rates due to absence of a law.

“This has resulted in inflated costs of land and hence increasing the cost, land conflicts and disputes, court injunctions leading to stalling of projects and completion time of public development projects,” he said.

He also discouraged land owners against what he called, ‘storing land for value’ saying that when land is stored for value, it affects production.

“We should encourage land owners to rent out this land without fear of losing it,” Muvawala said.