Housing Re-alignment Bureau

The irony is that some of the private companies that provide more efficient services (at a high premium, of course) are owned by the very government employees in charge of the national service providers that have failed to perform effectively. But that is a topic for another day. Now, if the government has failed to fix pot holes – let alone construct the necessary infrastructure that would ease traffic congestion in the city like fly-over bridges, by-passes other than just the northern by-pass that has completion issues of its own, etc – then perhaps the residents need to once again take matters into their own hands and find temporary solutions that ease the congestion until either the government in power wakes up or the peasants wake up and vote for a government that that wants to provide more than just peace for its citizens and legislators to sleep. My proposal, rudimentary as it is, would be for what I will call a Housing Re-alignment Bureau. This is why. In most cases, the traffic jams in Kampala are caused by people residing in one end of the city and working in the other. So you find that people staying in Munyonyo but working in Kyambogo will contribute to the jam in Kabalagala, Nsambya, Jinja Road and Nakawa before they get to work. Ditto people who reside in Kyambogo and work in Munyonyo. Similarly, people staying in Entebbe and working in Ntinda (or vice versa) will contribute to the jam in more than major city four roads every morning before reaching their destination. In order to avoid this, therefore, how about if we have a Housing Re-alignment Bureau so that those who stay in Munyonyo but work in Kyambogo can apply to get a house in Kyambogo. It would be the central reference point for housing, so that if there is another person who stays in Kyambogo but stays in Munyonyo, then the two swap houses. That is of course assuming that the two have the same housing needs, which is not always the case. But even if people don’t have to swap houses, all landlords would be encouraged to register with the bureau so that whenever a house that matches the needs of a tenant who has applied to relocate is up for grabs, he/she is quickly notified. This, or an arrangement of a similar nature, would in my view help to save people a lot of money in travel expenses, wasted time, and help reduce traffic congestion (to some extent) in our city that sometimes just grinds to a halt during the rush hours. In any case, many of those who own cars still rent houses so providing them with an incentive to relocate to a more convenient place, at least as far as their travel to and from work is concerned, is something I believe they would welcome.