Nsambya police barracks housing crisis collides with Kampala's upscale neighbours
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Upscale hotels rising around Nsambya Police Barracks are drawing attention to a condemned 60-acre police estate where each unit houses more than two families and closing the accommodation gap would cost Shs880 billion, roughly the force's entire annual budget.
Occupants of the upper floors of new hospitality investments around Nsambya can see the sprawling rusty corrugated shacks and dilapidated structures of Nsambya Police Barracks, arguably the biggest police accommodation facility in East and Central Africa. The barracks are a condemned place, with hundreds of outdoor open-roof bathrooms, pit-latrines and open sewage running through officers' residences.
The shortage of accommodation has forced officers to erect their own structures, known locally as mama ingia pole, which have piled pressure on water and power systems. Each unit at the barracks is occupied by more than two families. Most of the makeshift structures have no toilets, bathrooms or drainage, creating a slum scene that neighbouring hospitality businesses have had to screen off: after the Mestil Hotel and Residences opened in December 2017, its owners planted a thick bamboo hedge along the boundary with the barracks.
The pressure to act is now coming from both government and the private sector. Days after President Yoweri Museveni opened the Kampala Marriott Hotel, Inspector General of Police Abas Byakagaba visited the barracks and laid a foundation stone for improved housing infrastructure, pledging immediate intervention on the most pressing accommodation and welfare concerns after touring the facilities and hearing from officers and their spouses.
The numbers behind the problem are stark. Police records put the requirement for current housing needs at Shs880 billion, equal to the force's entire annual budget. A 2022 ministerial statement estimated that closing the gap over ten years would need Shs88 billion a year, against a police allocation of Shs43.345 billion, leaving a Shs45 billion shortfall.
Funding, political will and land ownership have defeated successive development proposals. In 2011 the police and the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development planned to redevelop the barracks and other estates through public-private partnerships, with investors building high-rise apartments for officers while using the rest of the land for commercial development for 30 years before the assets reverted to the police. Investors were found and won bids, but the project never started.
The reason is a land question. Most of the roughly 60 acres is owned by the Catholic Church, which is opposed to redevelopment by a private investor without its consent. The church leased the land to government for 99 years, but police defaulted on ground rent for years in breach of the lease, and the force now has 41 years left on the arrangement. With hospitality and commercial businesses multiplying around the site, the condition of the barracks has become a commercial as well as a welfare concern.