Street children in Kampala/Courtesy photo
The Minister for Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Minsa Kabanda, has called on Parliament to enact a law banning the public from giving out money to street children saying, Government is wasting a lot of money relocating the vulnerable children, who end up returning to the same streets.
Kabanda made the remarks while appearing before Parliament’s Presidential Affairs Committee where officials from KCCA had appeared to the 2024/25 national budget framework paper for the Authority.
“Up to now, they (street children) are still coming, there is a lot of money being wasted on these street children, so I think we need your intervention as Parliament. As Cabinet pronounces itself, you also need to pronounce yourself that we come up with a bill not to give them money because they are collecting money. We aren’t afraid, but I think we have done what we are supposed to do; for us we enforce with our small budget, then they come back on the streets,” she said.
Kabanda’s remarks were in response to a concern raised by Henry Masiko (UPDF) who questioned if KCCA has turned street children into tourist attractions, which could explain why the Authority didn’t budget for the activities of getting the kids off the street next financial year.
Matsiko said, “My colleague talked about street children, if you are talking of tourism, maybe that is one of the tourist attractions but I thought it is a disgrace that somebody was mocking us that potholes are also a tourist attraction.”
The Minister replied, “The Ministry of Gender is in charge, but however much we remove them from the streets, where are you going to put them? But when I remove them from the streets, still I will need money to give them food, we have to be with shelters to put those children.”
However, her response attracted more questions from MPs like Robert Kasolo (Ik Ik County) who wondered if the Authority had surrendered its home to other agencies remarking, “Who is the owner of the city? Literally, in African setting, how do you allow somebody to come and takeover your home?”
Jacob Karubanga (Kibanda County) noted that although he had noted while driving around the City that the number of street kids had reduced, there is need for the Authority to come up with lasting solutions to the issue of street children in Uganda.
He said, “But what strategy do we have to completely wipe them out? And the other day we were suggesting, why don’t we have a daily operation s than carrying out those very expensive operations. Identify them, threaten them, keep them off than budgeting for a very huge sum of money to conduct an operation once in six months.”
The development comes at a time when during the festive season, KCCA was embroiled in a twitter spat with some X (formerly Twitter) users who gave out food to some street children, an action the Authority deemed as illegal on grounds that it would entice more children to run away from home and come to the streets.
However, some Twitter users mocked KCCA’s reaction, lashing out at the Authority for failing to come up with a tangible solution to end the plight of the street children and also castigated KCCA for trying to criminalise moral actions like feeding the vulnerable children.
In September 2023, Parliament tasked the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to explain the whereabouts of 700 street children that were captured in their database, yet their whereabouts remain a mystery.
This followed a revelation in the 2022 Auditor General’s report that raised concern over lack of data base on street children in Uganda by the Ministry of Gender, with the report highlighting that whereas the ministry estimated that the number of street children could be 1,000 children, only 292 could be accounted for leaving over 700 children untraceable. 249 children are being kept at Masulita children home, 21 babies in Naguru babies’ home and 22 babies in various prisons with their mothers.”
