KAMPALA, July 28, 2026 –Last Saturday Ugandans and other nationals living in the country picked up brooms, hoes, sticks, slashers, spades, pangas, and gloves and went out to clean surroundings such as roads, road reserves, drainage channels and other public spaces, with the aim of promoting community hygiene.
It was the first National Cleaning Day declared by government, and if you happened to be in the right place at the right time, you may even have seen people who normally walk past rubbish without looking at it suddenly become very interested in cleaning it.
It is a wonderful idea.
In fact, I have an even better one.
“Let us ban kaveera. Then there will be nothing left to clean,” a friend commented.
Think about it. If the problem is kaveera [polyethene bag], and kaveera is banned, then the problem is solved. The drains will clear themselves. The rubbish will disappear. Kampala will shine. The streets will become so clean that the last Saturday of every month can become a national day of sitting at home and celebrating our success.
There is only one small problem: kaveera is not the only thing lying around Uganda.
There are plastic bottles, food containers, used nappies, old tyres, pieces of furniture, construction waste, food waste, broken electronics and, occasionally, entire mattresses that appear to have been carefully transported to a drainage channel and abandoned there.
But perhaps those things will also become afraid once kaveera is banned.
This is the beauty of solving problems in Uganda. We like simple enemies.
Blame kaveera when the city is dirty.
Blame kaveera when the drainage is blocked.
Blame kaveera when the neighbourhood smells like something has died.
When the rain comes and the roads become rivers, you already know who is responsible.
Kaveera.
The plastic bag has become Uganda’s most convenient criminal. Can it defend itself? No. Can it hold a press conference? No. Can it ask why there are no rubbish bins, who is responsible for collecting waste or why people continue throwing rubbish into drainage channels? No.
So we arrest it.
The National Cleaning Day itself is not a bad idea. Far from it. Uganda is dirty in many places, and something needs to be done. People should stop throwing rubbish everywhere. Authorities should enforce existing laws. Waste should be managed properly. Public spaces should not be treated as though they belong to nobody.
But the interesting question is: what happens after the brooms have been put away?
For three hours, we cleaned.
We went home.
The businesses that had closed for the exercise reopened.
And somewhere, somebody probably threw a bottle into the same drainage channel we had just cleared.
By next month, we shall return with our brooms and clean it again.
This is where the whole thing becomes somewhat funny.
A country cannot clean its way out of a waste-management problem forever. At some point, we have to ask what happens to the rubbish after we collect it.
Where does it go?
Who collects it?
How often is it collected?
What happens to the person who dumps it again?
And perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all: why do we keep creating the same problem we keep gathering to solve?
Because if we spend three hours cleaning every month, only to spend the remaining 700-plus hours creating new rubbish and throwing it wherever we please, then perhaps we have not solved the problem.
We have simply created a national cleaning routine.
Still, let us give the idea a chance.
Bring your broom. Bring your hoe. Bring your gloves.
And if the Government of Uganda really wants to make the exercise easier next month, it should consider banning the use of kaveera.
After all, if we ban everything that makes the country dirty, eventually there will be nothing left to clean.
That is the plan, isn’t it?
Bekar Ismail
IT Consultant
bekaresmail@gmail.com
https://thecooperator.news/nebbi-vendors-threaten-to-stage-demonstration-over-uncollected-garbage/
Buy your copy of thecooperator magazine from one of our country-wide vending points or an e-copy on emag.thecooperator.news
