By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
KAMPALA
The rent is due again at the end of the month, and for thousands of Uganda’s public servants, it will consume most of their pay before school fees, transport or food are considered.
Across Kampala and other urban centres, teachers, nurses, police officers and junior civil servants continue to spend years moving from one rented room to another, often with little hope of ever owning a home. In many cases, government housing estates and staff quarters are overcrowded, ageing or simply unavailable.
For some Ugandans, the cycle has become so normal that salaries are discussed not in terms of savings or investment, but in terms of “survival until the next payday”.
It is against this backdrop that Jimmy James Akena, the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) party president has attempted to place affordable housing at the centre of Uganda’s political debate, even as his own political ambitions stalled after the Electoral Commission declined to nominate him for the presidential race in the last elections.
Standing before journalists at Uganda House in Kampala on Tuesday, the son of the former President outlined what he described as a practical solution for low and middle-income earners: modular, container-based housing units designed to help working Ugandans eventually own property.
“The UPC programme is better than any other programme in Uganda today. On the question of housing, on education and on health, the UPC programme is better,” Akena said referencing the UPC manifesto that never reached ballot conversation.
His proposal focuses on salaried Ugandans earning between one and two million shillings monthly, workers who are employed but remain locked out of conventional home ownership because of high land prices, expensive mortgages and rising urban rents.
“What I am presenting today is a programme which gives people an opportunity to own houses. Those earning one million shillings or two million shillings will have an opportunity,” he said.
The housing model would rely on modular structures built from shipping containers, an approach increasingly being adopted in parts of Africa and elsewhere as governments and developers search for cheaper and faster alternatives to traditional construction.
For Akena, the target beneficiaries are clear: teachers posted to remote schools, nurses transferred between health centres, police officers living in crowded barracks and soldiers housed in deteriorating accommodation.
“These are the sort of people we are targeting, but not to be in government houses. At the end of the day, they should own their own property,” he said.
His remarks tap into a long-running concern about the state of public service housing in Uganda.
In some government schools, teachers still live in temporary structures or travel long distances because staff quarters are either inadequate or nonexistent. Police barracks in several parts of the country have repeatedly been criticised for congestion and poor sanitation, while some military housing units date back decades.
“If you go around and look at teachers’ housing in various schools, police housing and army housing, you will see the challenge,” Akena noted.
Housing experts say Uganda’s urban population growth has significantly outpaced affordable housing development, leaving many low-income earners trapped in rental markets with little legal or financial protection.
While Uganda has seen a rise in high-end apartment construction and gated estates, affordable housing projects have remained limited, particularly for workers earning below three million shillings a month.
For many public officers, home ownership remains a distant ambition despite years of employment.
A teacher in Wakiso, earning slightly above one million shillings monthly, may spend nearly half that income on rent and transport alone. A junior police officer transferred from one district to another may spend years in temporary accommodation without accumulating assets.
Akena argues that this reality affects not only livelihoods but also morale and service delivery.
Yet questions remain over how his proposed programme would work in practice.
UPC has not released details on financing models, land acquisition, repayment structures or implementation timelines. It is also unclear whether the houses would be subsidised by government, financed through cooperatives or accessed through salary deduction schemes.
Nevertheless, Akena said he would release the program to the government for adoption. He added that his party is open to broader political dialogue on issues affecting livelihoods, saying housing affordability had become a major concern among ordinary Ugandans.
Still, the proposal has injected housing affordability into a political conversation often dominated by roads, elections and patronage politics.
“We are not part of the problem, we are part of the solution. In all the things we do, we always offer a better alternative,” Akena said, challenging Uganda’s ruling party (NRM) to present competing ideas.
“The challenge is out. If NRM has a better programme, let them put it out and let Ugandans judge,” he said.
Whether the proposal gains traction remains uncertain. But for many Ugandans staring at another month of rent deductions, the promise of eventually owning even a modest home may resonate more strongly than political slogans.
And in a country where public servants often retire without property despite decades of work, the debate Akena sought to start may outlive the election race he never entered.
