Uganda’s excellent anti-noise pollution laws need serious enforcement now

My wife and I successfully fled from noisy Kampala last week and have taken refuge in a quieter corner of our country. Not the perfect hideaway, for noise pollution is here as well, albeit less annoying than the incessant and inescapable emissions that assaulted our ears in Kampala. Very loud dance music has been on this small town’s menu every night since we arrived here three days ago.

Many people wrote to me last week to share their experiences with noise pollution in Uganda. A compilation of their messages would be an interesting record that future citizens would find instructive about their ancestors’ self-destructive ways. Three samples illustrate real-world experiences of Ugandans.

CM wrote from Kampala: “Ha, ha, ha, MM, if you think you have heard noise, think twice my friend. The rate at which today’s churches spring up in residential areas like in my village, Bugolobi, just make the disco/bar as quiet as the grave! This past Sunday, there was a ‘traditional worship service’ across the road. Yes, traditional big and long drums lined up for the whole village to see. The harsh sound could be heard across the valley, all the way to Mutungo hill and beyond. The worshippers were well secured. Freedom to worship at its best. I now fully understand the beauty of village life.”

PK, another Kampala resident, wrote: “I have read your article on noise pollution, and I agree with you one hundred percent. The situation is totally out of control, and no one cares. There is a house in my neighbourhood whose tenants turned it into a restaurant/bar, with loud music several days in a week. On Easter Sunday this year, the party, with full blast music, started at 6.00 pm and ended at 7.00 am. We could not sleep that night. We complained to the manager and then went to Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to lodge a complaint. For a few weeks the noise was toned down. However, KCCA don't really care. They make promises and give you a telephone contact to call when the noise is too much. However, when you call, no one answers or when they do they tell you they don't have transport. I keep hoping and praying that one day things will change and sanity will be restored in our beloved country.”

LK wrote from Kebisooni, Rujumbura: “I always knew that noise was a cause of mental disturbance but never knew other health effects. Thank you. Now, you should know that even your Mparo has not been spared. The campaigning noise is today's main offering. Recently, the campaign trucks of the two main parliamentary candidates for Ndorwa West in Kabale District were at the same place, blaring their respective music at maximum volumes. Whoever started the business of inviting musicians to political campaign rallies has redefined how low we have sunk.

“But there are other sources of frequent noise pollution, including business promotions by telephone companies, noisy roadside preachers, and Pentecostal Christian churches that operate during the day and night. Then you have the Muslim mullahs calling their faithful to prayer when the rest of us are supposed to be sleeping in the wee hours of the morning.

“You have no idea how much noise pollution we endure in my part of the country where we have no industrial noise since we have no industries at all. I was shocked to find a very noisy roadside preacher in Buyanja. However, there is nothing that pisses me off like the noisy preachers in our public buses. Can you imagine someone is allowed onto the bus and starts to tell us all their lies and people start to give them money? Then the preacher starts to pray for those who have given them money, playing a psychological trick on vulnerable minds.”

Our journey from Kampala was a very noisy affair, not only because of the usual highway traffic, but also the multiple episodes of presidential political campaigns inflicting deafening music and loud announcements from enormous loudspeakers.

One of the loudest of these was at Lwengo, on the Masaka-Mburara highway, where one candidate’s team was entertaining the citizens. We noticed several trucks full of young people who, according to our driver, were being ferried to the campaign venue to shore up numbers at the presidential candidate’s rally.

The gimmickry of inflated rally attendance was not of interest to me. What impressed me was the complete contempt that this candidate’s campaign had for Uganda’s National Environment (Noise Standards and Control) Regulations, 2003.

The Regulations prescribed “the maximum permissible noise levels from a facility or activity to which a person may be exposed”, provided for “the control of noise and mitigating measures for the reduction of noise”, and generally gave “effect to the provisions of section 28 of the National Environment Act.”

No person was allowed to “emit noise in excess of the permissible noise level, unless permitted by a licence issued under these Regulations.” Any person who contravened this regulation committed an offence and was “liable, on conviction, to a fine not less than one hundred and eighty thousand shillings and not more than eighteen million shillings, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding eighteen months, or both.” These are not my words. It was the law of the land.

I write in the past tense because, like many laws, Uganda’s Noise Standards and Control Regulations, appear to have been an excellent idea that was safely filed away after the hard work of their formulators and legislators.

It is not too late to enforce these regulations. We acknowledge that life is noisy. The Universe is noisy. Development is noisy. Progress is noisy. It is a reality that one understands and tries to live with.

However, preventable, health-altering noise pollution in Uganda is one of the gains of the last forty years that we must not protect. We must fight that gain and restore sanity to the land.

President Yoweri Museveni and his competitors for the presidency should interest themselves in the practical enforcement of the excellent anti-noise pollution laws that are already in place.

I invite people across our country to form local groups to support and actualize NEMA’s promise to ensure “a healthy environment for all people in Uganda, the tranquillity of their surroundings and their psychological well-being by regulating noise levels, and generally, to elevate the standard of living of the People.”