KCCA ordered to compensate woman who fell in manhole

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The High Court in Kampala has ordered Kampala Capital City Authority-KCCA to compensate Rebecca Mayanja Nalule with 35 million Shillings. Nalule was injured after falling into an open manhole along Jinja Road in Kampala about five years ago.

According to the decision issued on Friday by the Civil Division Judge Musa Ssekaana, the money will attract a 15 percent interest per annum and she is also awarded the costs of the suit.

The decision was given after finding that KCCA was liable in negligence for the injury Nalule sustained when she fell inside a manhole along Jinja Road at Rugby grounds opposite ShopRite.

In 2020, Nalule sued KCCA seeking a declaration that the KCCA was negligent in its duties when it left an open manhole which she fell into and as a result sustained life-threatening injuries on her body and sought compensatory damages, general damages, punitive damages, special damages and costs of the suit.

She alleged that on June 9th 2018 while travelling along Jinja Road opposite Shoprite near the Rugby grounds fell into an open manhole under the management of KCCA. As a result, she sustained injuries to her body and internal organs.

KCCA denied the incident never occurred and contended that the Nalule never brought it to their attention and that the manholes located at Lugogo along Jinja road were covered at the time of the alleged accident and remain covered.

Records show that KCCA investigated the matter and found that the alleged manhole did not exist and all manholes were properly covered.

Nalule’s lawyer Nicholas Ssenkumbi insisted that KCCA owed his client a duty of care when it failed to cover the manhole and provide lighting along Jinja Road near the Rugby grounds.  Ssenkumbi said that it was a statutory duty of the KCCA under the Kampala Capital City Act to maintain roads, construct and maintain drains and install and maintain street lights.

The court heard that the manhole was open and Nalule fell in the same at around 7:30 pm. It further heard that when she sent her daughter the following day to take pictures of the manhole she found it had been freshly covered by KCCA’s agents.

Nalule sought to recover damages for the lost income since she was unable to work at her restaurant called ‘Stomach Clinic’.

KCCA said that the evidence by Nalule was hearsay and that her witnesses were merely told by other people. According to KCCA, at the time of reporting and investigating the incident, the said manhole was found covered and there was no open manhole and no visible sign of recent renovations existed at the alleged scene of the accident.  KCCA argued that the technical team in its report confirmed that the excavation of the said area for construction was done in September 2018 and not in June 2018 when Nalule fell into the manhole.

In his decision, Justice Ssekaana agreed with Nalule that KCCA was in breach of its duties.

“The defendant/KCCA was carrying out some works on the road under a solicitation project and it was duty bound to cover those manholes or put signs/barriers to alert road users or city dwellers about the eminent risk and danger. The failure to take reasonable steps to warn the public was a breach of duty”, said Ssekaana.

Ssekaana added that although it is not in dispute that Nalule was injured, the extent of her injuries couldn’t be well established since she presented evidence to show that she sought treatment from a pharmacy as opposed to a hospital where she would have obtained a proper diagnosis.

“The plaintiff was pulled out of the manhole and they took her to Wilson Street at a Pharmacy and not a hospital for proper diagnosis to assess the injury. It appears later she was taken to hospital at Wakiso and was managed for several ailments some of which appear not to have been related to the fall in the manhole”, Ssekaana held.

In November 2021, the Court ruled that the government and Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) have infringed on the right to life, protection from deprivation of property, and right to a safe and clean environment for Kampala city dwellers by failing to construct and maintain roads and drainage channels.

The ruling was made by Justice Michael Elubu while determining a case in which Legal Brain Trust sued the government and KCCA over failure to protect city dwellers from unsafe and hazardous roads, drainage channels, sewers and related infrastructure.

This was after the death of 56-year-old Cissy Namukasa, a vendor in Bugoloobi market who drowned in a drainage channel in Nakawa Division on the 2nd May 2020. Namukasa was washed away by stormwater only for her body to be recovered more than a month later.

KCCA was accordingly ordered to report to parliament, within 3 months on the progress it has made to ensure that the dangers posed by unsafe roads, open drainage channels, sewers, manholes and related infrastructure roads have been addressed.

The report was to include comprehensive maintenance plans. It’s however not clear whether KCCA complied with the orders.

*****

URN