The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Gulu, Uganda | URN | Local leaders in Gulu City have criticised tenants and corporate employees for failing to participate in the National Cleaning Day exercise, despite living and working in areas grappling with poor sanitation. The leaders say some tenants believe cleaning their surroundings is the responsibility of landlords, while some corporate employees have similarly failed to take part in the mandatory exercise because they pay rent for their premises.
Alex Okoya, the LCII Chairperson of Labourline Ward in Laroo-Pece Division, told Uganda Radio Network on Saturday that many tenants from reports he established had failed to contribute to the cleaning exercise, arguing that it was the responsibility of their landlords. Okoya said some corporate employees operating from rented premises had also not embraced the initiative, believing that payment of rent relieved them of responsibility for maintaining their surroundings.
“You find someone staying in hostels, they will tell you, ‘I am not going to pay, I am not going to do cleaning because this hostel belongs to somebody; I have paid.’ People are not participating in reference to what they believe their money should have done,” Okoya said. He called on the government to clarify the respective responsibilities of landlords and tenants during the National Cleaning Day, although he stressed that maintaining a clean environment should be viewed as an individual responsibility.
David Okema, the LCII Vice Chairperson of Lawiyadul Ward in Laroo-Pece Division, said that while he had witnessed his residents participating in the exercise, tenants should not leave the responsibility of cleaning their homes and surroundings entirely to landlords. “I don’t think that tenants should give the burden of cleaning their houses, their homesteads or their surroundings to the landlords. It sounds weird because this is a matter of health,” Okema told Uganda Radio Network in an interview on Saturday.
Okema attributed resistance by some tenants to negative attitudes and called for a mindset change, saying maintaining a clean environment directly affects public health. Amir Kamba, the Deputy Gulu Resident City Commissioner in charge of Bardege-Layibi Division, acknowledged that some tenants had failed to participate in the cleaning exercise and urged them to comply with the government directive.
Kamba also expressed concern over the failure of some corporate institutions to participate, warning that continued non-compliance would not be tolerated. “There are very many corporate bodies that are here that we did not see, and we have also seen that even in their areas of operation, nothing was done. That is dangerous. So, going forward, we are going to follow up on them, actually, before the next National Cleaning Day,” Kamba said.
The National Cleaning Day programme, launched in July, requires citizens to participate in a mandatory three-hour cleaning exercise every month, from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., as part of government efforts to improve sanitation and keep communities clean. The second National Cleaning Day in Gulu City saw several streets largely deserted between 7:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., with the majority of shops and market entrances, especially Cerelenu and Gulu Main Market, closed and traffic movement reduced.
Unlike the inaugural exercise last month, which was characterized by heavy security deployment and significant restrictions on movement, the situation in Gulu City centre this morning was relatively relaxed during Tuesday’s exercise. Only a handful of traffic police officers were deployed, with no major restrictions imposed on boda boda riders and some light vehicles accessing the city centre.
To be fair, three hours of a street trader’s time, three hours of a domestic worker’s time, three hours of a surgeon’s time, three hours of a judge’s time, three hours of a CEO’s time, is not worth the same as three hours of an unemployed person’s time.
Even if we ignore the huge economic impact of pausing all economic activity for three hours on arguably the busiest day of the week especially for the informal sector, and engaging soldiers and other government officials in work that’s not part of their job description and pulls them away from performing their actual duties, or even interfering with their chance to rest such that when it’s time for them to do their work they are ready to do it properly… turning unpaid labour into.a national event instead of recognizing the valuable yet relatively unskilled work of cleaning as a very simple and straightforward opportunity to create gainful employment for those suffering from chronic unemployment, which would then help them become more active participants in the economy and eventually move on to other things…
National Cleaning Day really needs to be reconsidered because there’s a lot that just doesn’t make sense and it’s costing us dearly in ways that just aren’t worth it and are completely unnecessary… especially considering the opportunity cost of jobs being thrown away in the kasasiro.
Did anybody stop to think about the impact of losing three hours of work for a boda rider or a rolex guy on the day of the week that they would make the most money? Do you know how many loans will not be repaid on time because of those three hours? Do you know the stress of providing for a family from an income that is hand-to-mouth, the day you don’t work your family doesn’t eat… those three hours are big deal. Yet there are people desperately needing work that would gladly do this needed work passionately for a small fee.
Do you know how many Ugandans simply cannot afford the luxury of “free time” because they must work day in day out to make sure they provide for their families, and they are barely managing to put food on the table and pay rent. They work non stop all day every day, not by choice but because circumstances have forced them to do so. And then out of nowhere somebody decides that it’s a brilliant idea to command them to stop earning money for three hours and spend those three hours doing unpaid work, by force.
Make it make sense.