Hidden Facts: Why Dorothy Kisaka, the Executive Director of KCCA, Was Fired
By Amos Ssemuwemba
In a dramatic shake-up of leadership at the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), President Yoweri Museveni fired Dorothy Kisaka, the Executive Director (ED), along with her Deputy and the Director of Health, in what insiders are describing as a long-brewing storm of mismanagement and negligence. While the public narrative centers on inefficiency, waste management failures, and health crises, the real reasons behind Kisaka’s sudden dismissal are rooted in deeper, more complex issues that have plagued KCCA for months.
The Immediate Trigger: The Kitezi Landfill Disaster
One of the most publicized reasons for Kisaka’s dismissal was the recent collapse of the Kitezi landfill, the city’s primary waste disposal site. The catastrophic event in early August caused widespread health and environmental hazards, leaving KCCA’s waste management operations in disarray. The failure to properly manage the site, despite a reported annual budget of UGX 4.1 billion allocated for its upkeep, brought the institution under intense scrutiny.
Sources within KCCA reveal that Kisaka, as ED, was ultimately held accountable for the city’s garbage management crisis, particularly as waste piled up across Kampala in the weeks following the disaster. The Kitezi collapse exposed the long-standing mismanagement within KCCA’s public health and sanitation sectors, leading to public outcry and pressure on the government to act.
Deeper Administrative Failures
While the Kitezi landfill disaster was the final straw, several underlying administrative failures contributed to Kisaka’s downfall. Under her leadership, KCCA struggled to meet key targets for urban infrastructure, service delivery, and public health. Despite having access to considerable funding, there were persistent reports of misallocation and poor oversight within key departments.
Kisaka’s leadership style also faced criticism from within City Hall. Staff members cited a lack of cohesion and strategic direction, with some accusing her of being out of touch with the on-ground realities of Kampala’s needs. The management vacuum created under her leadership had long frustrated both lower-level employees and city residents, but it took the severity of the Kitezi disaster to bring these issues to the forefront.
Power Struggles and Bureaucratic Sabotage
Dorothy Kisaka’s firing cannot be viewed in isolation from the larger political power plays within KCCA. Since her appointment in 2020, Kisaka found herself entangled in fierce internal battles between long-serving bureaucrats, particularly those entrenched in the Musisi era, and new appointees brought in to align with Museveni’s broader political agenda.
A key player in this struggle was Dr. Daniel Okello, the now-dismissed Director of Health, who had wielded significant influence over KCCA’s garbage management, public health policies, and key operations for over a decade. Okello’s ability to navigate City Hall politics meant that, at times, Kisaka’s authority was undermined by entrenched figures like him who resisted her reforms.
In fact, political insiders suggest that some of the administrative chaos in KCCA was deliberately orchestrated by factions within the institution seeking to discredit Kisaka and her team. Her push to modernize KCCA and root out inefficiencies made her the target of bureaucratic sabotage from officials whose interests lay in maintaining the status quo.
Museveni’s Decision: A Calculated Move?
President Museveni’s decision to fire Kisaka came as a surprise to some, given that she had been considered a loyalist, appointed to reform and modernizes Kampala’s administration. However, the political optics surrounding KCCA’s failures were becoming untenable. With Kampala being Uganda’s political and economic nerve center, the mismanagement of key services like waste disposal and health systems posed a direct threat to Museveni’s broader political goals.
The firing of Kisaka, her Deputy, and Okello sends a strong message that the President is willing to make decisive changes in his government, especially when public dissatisfaction mounts. The widespread failures at KCCA had become a political liability, and in an effort to restore public confidence, Museveni took the dramatic step of clearing out top leadership.
The Road Ahead: A Tough Task for Kisaka’s Successor
As KCCA grapples with this leadership shake-up, the question remains: can the next Executive Director restore the institution’s credibility and navigate the deeply entrenched bureaucratic challenges? Kisaka’s tenure, though short, was marked by a difficult balancing act between pushing for reform and managing resistance from within the institution.
Her firing, along with the broader reshuffle, underscores the challenges of running Kampala, a city growing rapidly in population but suffering from chronic underfunding and poor infrastructure. Kisaka’s replacement will need to address the systemic issues within KCCA — from waste management to public health — while rebuilding public trust in an institution that has, for too long, failed to meet the expectations of the city’s residents.
