Jennifer Musisi Semakula has resigned from the office of the Executive Director of Kampala, ending her seven year tenure at the helm of the city.
Musisi submitted her resignation notice to President Yoweri Museveni yesterday indicating that she will step down on December 15, 2018. In the letter, Musisi highlighted a number of challenges in the management of Kampala. Key among them is the unceasing bickering between the political and technical wing of KCCA.
“One of the challenges has been to reconcile the competing interests between political perspectives/decisions and the strategic plans of the KCCA technical team. Consequently, it has increasingly become difficult to achieve set targets,” Musisi said.
She equally points out the inadequate political support to the efforts of the KCCA technical team to transform Kampala, a result of which many planned city improvement plans have not received political support.
Jennifer Musisi acknowledges that KCCA is unable to fully meet the government and public expectations in city development programmes and service delivery demands due to inadequate funding.
She says that KCCA has inadequate permanent staff on account of budget limitations, resulting in prolonged temporary terms of service and job insecurity. She adds that this trend has led to demotivation and high turnover of highly skilled staff.
Last year Jennifer Musisi told parliament’s committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) that she would have declined the offer for the job if she had known what her job would entail.
The development came at the heal of tensions and power struggles between the KCCA political wing led by the Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, the technical wing and Kampala Minister Beti Olive Kamya.
Before joining KCCA, Jennifer Musisi worked as commissioner legal and board affairs at the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA). She has been one of the highest earning civil servants taking home more than Shs 40m per month.
In the past, Jennifer Musisi regretted taking up the KCCA job and her tenure has been marred by endless bickering between her technical wing and the political wing of KCCA.
– URN
