Why It Is Wrong To Fence Lira Mayor's Garden

B. B Olwa

For two days running there has been a lot of media frenzy or Hullabaloo on the decision by Lira City Council to allocate and award contracts from the savings of the USMID funds towards construction of a perimeter fencing of the mayor's garden.

Of course this has garnered alot of interest from the general public especially on the amount allocated which seem exaggerated.

Now this is my opinion.

About four months ago when this proposal was adopted by council or executives for that matter, I made my take clear. " There is no need fencing the mayor's garden"y

My opinion of course was due to a carefull consideration of the physical planning area of Lira which is largely messed up.

The planners of Lira trading center in the 1950s in their wisdom thought that the oppen spaces that include coronation park, the old Akii Bua stadium, the current mayor's garden, the tipper stage ( NUMA grounds) was more important to remain as oppen spaces.

You can see that their wisdom has transcended close to three decades to what we have today evolving to a city.

Now, drawing examples from cities and major towns in Uganda, kampala City mayor's garden is enclosed, Soroti city has the independence square open, Kampala has the constitutional square quite oppen,

Mbarara has the Boma grounds and the golf course etc and many other examples. 

Of course drawing from these few examples, Uganda is lacking interns of physical planning.

 For Lira it gets worse. We badly need oppen spaces.We had the coronation park, we had the tipper stage. These have been the only green oppen spaces.

Why oppen spaces are important;

1. It serves as a host for community public events such as concerts, barazas, small games, leisure parks and rest area.

2. A green flowery aura of the city etc.

Now for Lira with the enclosure of the coronation park, the enclosure of mayor's garden, where are iddlers, concert makers, free community meetings organiser and those seeking rest going to go?

Hence the only alternative has been the mayor's garden.

These were my thoughts.

1. Mayor's garden would simply be landscaped and beautified.

2. Tipper stage also simply beautified to a green oppen area as we wait for a comprehensive city physical master plan.

3. Savings be used to solve the headache of street lighting in the city and probably upgrading some roads such those at senior quarters

But since the current leadership in their wisdom thought enclosing all oppen spaces is paramount, I will respect that. They only need to be sensitive to the fact that consultation of key stakeholders is paramount in all meaningful development. 

On the cost of the current development being undertaken,it is not my concern and won't comment on it.

Olwa Bonny Brown is a city Resident and a development crusader

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