When the rain came last Friday night, Kampala didn’t just get wet, it went under.
By dawn, the city’s downtown arcades had become islands of despair, their basements turned into brown, debris-filled pools. Traders waded through knee-deep water, dragging out soaked goods worth billions of shillings.
Mattresses, bales of clothes, carpets, everything that represented months of toil and borrowed capital, were floating in the oily floodwater that pooled where cars once parked.
The floods, triggered by a long, unrelenting downpour, swamped much of central Kampala and its suburbs. It was not the first time the city had gone under, but this time felt different, deeper, costlier and angrier.
The scenes at Ssekaziga, Totala, and French Plaza portrayed a problem that has outgrown weather: a city choking on its own infrastructure failures. At the heart of the mess is a familiar paradox.
Traders have built businesses in basement spaces meant for parking. City authorities have licensed those same traders to operate there. And the drainage systems meant to carry stormwater away have been narrowed or blocked by construction projects that promise progress but often deliver pain.
“We’ve been paying trading licenses and other fees like any other business,” said Nasser Kagimu, a trader at Ssekaziga arcade.
“Now they blame us for operating in basements. But where were they when they collected the money?” His frustration echoed across the flooded arcades as traders stacked dripping merchandise onto trucks. Some worried that the water, trapped for hours, had weakened the very foundations of their workplaces.
“You can see cracks in the walls,” said Victor Mark Makanga, who sells clothes downtown. “We fear these buildings might collapse.”
Among the traders, tempers flared over who should take responsibility. Many accused businessman Hamis Kiggundu, whose company redeveloped the nearby Nakivubo Channel, of narrowing water passageways, turning downtown into a floodplain.
“The channel has no space left for water to flow,” said Livingstone Ssebulime, who lost most of his stock of mattresses. “Let them stop those works and think about us. We need compensation.”
It was this growing unrest that prompted Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) executive director, Hajjat Sharifah Buzeki, to walk through the flooded arcades herself over the weekend. Flanked by a small team, she stepped carefully over puddles and debris to listen to traders’ grievances.
AN ASSESSMENT—OR A RECKONING?
Speaking to journalists afterward, Buzeki said a KCCA technical team had been dispatched to assess the extent of the damage and determine the true cause of the flooding.
“The report will guide us on suitable interventions to support affected traders,” she said.
But beneath her measured tone lay an admission that Kampala’s drainage and planning systems have again buckled under predictable pressure. Even by Sunday evening, pools of stormwater still lingered in the arcades.
Trucks came and went, ferrying ruined goods to traders’ homes. At Nakivubo Settlement primary school, which also flooded, teachers worried about their pupils, especially the Primary Seven candidates preparing for exams. In the schoolyard, a teacher pointed at the still-damp classrooms and sighed: “How do children concentrate when their books are floating?”
Kampala’s floods have long been more than acts of nature. They are the product of urban sprawl colliding with weak enforcement, unchecked construction and aging drainage networks that no longer match the city’s growth.
Every storm revives the same cycle: damage, blame, and promises of assessment. But for traders who live hand-to-mouth, the losses are not abstract. Each bale of soaked fabric is a loan unpaid. Each ruined mattress, a child’s school fee gone.
“It’s not just the water,” one trader muttered as he swept his empty shop floor. “It’s the system that keeps letting us drown.”
WHAT COMES NEXT
KCCA’s upcoming assessment may chart a way forward, perhaps new drainage works, compensation talks, or enforcement crackdowns. Yet the deeper question is whether Kampala can balance its booming commerce with safety and sustainability.
The floods have revealed not just blocked channels but blocked accountability. Until those are cleared, every downpour will remain a reminder: in Kampala, rain doesn’t simply fall, it exposes.
