Shattered symbol of Mubende Mayor’s Garden, cost of mismanaged investment

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OPINION

By Amiri Wabusimba

At the heart of Uganda’s Mubende Municipality stands the Mayor’s Garden, once heralded as a symbol of progress under the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development (USMID) program.

Hon. Judith Nabakooba, Minister of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development, confirmed that the project—funded with over sh63 billion was inaugurated with presidential endorsement as a signal of national commitment to modern infrastructure and sustainable public spaces. Yet, beyond the ceremonies and optimism, the garden has rapidly become an emblem of squandered resources, compromised environmental goals, and eroded public trust.

According to the Ministry of Lands and Urban Development, USMID was designed to promote sustainable urban growth. However, community observations and emerging reports reveal a troubling gap between the approved project plan and what was ultimately implemented.

What was budgeted as a carefully designed ecological park has, in practice, been reduced to a hastily executed facility with little oversight.

Instead of being preserved and nurtured, the Mayor’s Garden is already being commercialised and hired out for weddings, concerts, and other large gatherings. Though such activities may provide short-term municipal revenue, they undermine the ecological infrastructure that taxpayers financed.

The effects are plain; grass funded and maintained with public money is trampled during events. Trees intended to grow into shade and carbon sinks are broken before they mature. Makeshift cooking and vending during gatherings leave behind waste, fire risks, and soil damage.

This pattern of destruction is unfolding even before the garden celebrates its first anniversary, rendering the investment fragile and unsustainable.

The Mubende Mayor's garden exposes systemic accountability failures that afflict urban development across much of the Global South. Development aid, concessional loans, and domestic taxes are often funnelled into ambitious projects that promise transformation but falter under weak oversight, political interference, and institutional complacency.

The World Bank has long emphasised that programs like USMID include environmental and social safeguards intended to prevent such misuse, but safeguards are only as effective as the governance structures that enforce them.

What is at risk extends beyond fiscal discipline. Urban green spaces are central to climate resilience: they cool cities, store carbon, sustain biodiversity, and enhance mental and physical health. When these spaces are degraded or commercialised, communities lose not only the financial value of the investment but also the irreplaceable ecological benefits.

The contradiction is stark: Uganda, like many nations, has pledged to meet its climate commitments under the Paris Agreement, yet negligence in cases such as Mubende undermines both national credibility and global solidarity. Corrective measures are urgent, including an Independent audit of the USMID project in Mubende must be compulsory, with findings made public.

Municipal authorities need clear policies that classify green spaces as protected infrastructure rather than commercial venues. Development partners financing these projects should insist on accountability for both ecological and fiscal outcomes, or risk perpetuating waste. Civil society and citizens themselves must be empowered to monitor and challenge misuse.

The misuse of Mubende’s Mayor’s Garden is not merely a municipal failure; it is a betrayal of taxpayers, a distortion of climate finance, and an injustice against future generations who will inherit depleted rather than flourishing spaces.

For Uganda, the choice is whether to let such cases become precedent or to take decisive steps toward restoring accountability.

For the global community, Mubende is a reminder that every wasted green investment weakens collective climate goals and deepens public disillusionment. When billions are invested in sustainability, the world cannot afford to let them collapse under poor management and short-term gain. Mubende may appear to be a small municipality, but its story is universal. The true measure of development is not the spectacle of inauguration, but the long-term stewardship of public resources. Anything less is not progress it is deception.

The writer is a communication specialist, career diplomat, Journalist, political analyst and Human Right activist