JJANGU ONKWEKULE: The majority of the Nakawa/Naguru houses and all the Ntinda ones were thatched with asbestos and some of them still stand today

Thursday 2 August 2012

The majority of the Nakawa/Naguru houses and all the Ntinda ones were thatched with asbestos and some of them still stand today

1/7 Some UAH Colleagues are now asking whether a single structure can be pointed out that was erected before 1960, with asbestos components. Of course that argument is in itself tangential, but we shall still dispose of it. The (tertiary) point raised by colleagues was that the government of the 60s, to them, UPC, was responsible for exposing Ugandans to the problem of asbestos. We have shown that it could never have been possible for that government (part of which was an alliance with KY) to foresee the problems that it is being blamed for, and that even the UK only managed to put a ban on Asbestos just in 1985, USA will in 2014, while Canada is projected to remain involved with asbestos until at least 2032. With all that, we have asked the colleagues: so how about Uganda, not just even in 2012, but of all eras, in 1962?

2/7 But now to their point that asbestos featured in Uganda after 1960: We may all know that after WWII, the colonial government set out to establish an African Housing policy, out of which the Nakawa/Naguru Housing estate were built, with anything up to 1,000 units. The Nakawa estate was built in 1948, and the Naguru one in 1949....with plenty of asbestos.

3/7 Following the publishing of the Uganda (Protectorate) Statement of Policy on Africa Urban Housing in 1954, the Ntinda Housing estate was added and this was completed around 1956. The Ntinda Project was specifically a Home ownership Scheme, which enabled people like AM Obote, IK Musazi and many upcoming politicians of the day to purchase housing units in Ntinda...with a deposti of shs 1,000-1,500, specifically along Ntinda Road, Kalema Road, Mutesa II Road and Semawata Road. AM Obote was living in one of those houses in 1958. As I said yesterday, it was on Semawata Road, I think Plot 129.

4/7 The majority of the Nakawa/Naguru houses and all the Ntinda ones were thatched with asbestos and some of them still stand today. Even the louvres of their windows and ventilators were made out of asbestos; and even the sinks in the kitchenettes! And by the way, those modular strucutures are the ones you will still find at all the rural Railway stops and all the disused PWD posts and telegraph relay points in bushes in the countryside...all with asbestos, and erected in the 1940s.

5/7 Here is a picture of the interior of Mr Musazi's house, in one of those units in Ntinda estate...with Gen Kayihura and Mr Kivejinja, taken in 1986:

6/7 The Naguru/Nakawa housing estates were demolished last year, after standing for over 60 years from the late 1940s. The video of the demolition is at this link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GblHS8pb18s&feature=relmfu, and whoever wants can see the asbestos for himself. Of course as you will see, the big danger now lies in the manner in which the demolition is being done. I do not think there is any asbestos awareness in the whole exercise: typical conditions for fragmentation and pulverisation of asbestos, with all the risks to the police, onlookers, evictees and the press, and the wider Kampala public, since the dust knows no boundaries.

7/7 Here are the pictures of the Nakawa/Naguru 1940s Asbestos houses as they were being demolished last year, and a picture of Namirembe Cathedral.....1915......