A new global assessment has placed Uganda eighth on the air quality index, and like other reports before it, this World Air Quality Report 2025 is likely to stay on the shelf, ‘where it belongs’. Ugandans do not need IQAir – the authors of the report – to tell them that the air they breathe is filthy. It has become glaringly evident that the very air we breathe is slowly killing us. From traffic congestion, where toxic fumes from unregulated boda boda traffic combine with other vehicular emissions, to untamed sewage and poor garbage disposal that cause unimaginable air pollution, right down to environment degradation, where even natural solutions to pollution have been done away with, with impunity, Uganda has seen it all. We are in trouble. Throughout the country, swamps, wetlands and forest reserves have been encroached on, leaving the public as the only absorbers of dirty air. Kampala Capital City Authority and other local governments have their work cut out; you cannot enforce selectively. In every Kampala suburb, for example, housing units still exist that depend on a heavy storm for their waste and sewage disposal. Open defecation and urination continue, unashamedly. Open-air burning of garbage, including bio-hazardous waste, continues unabated, despite it being declared illegal by KCCA. Ask residents of and around Makerere University, where the College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Bio-Security (COVAB) reportedly routinely burns its bio-waste in an incinerator late at night, sending choking fumes into closed houses, for residents to wake up to the foul smell and have nowhere to seek redress. To understand the gravity of the problem, those in charge of running Kampala simply have to ask people living with asthma and other respiratory diseases, and how their attacks are triggered by the poor air quality in the city, and yet the same people flourish when they travel to even as close as Kigali. That is because when it comes to controlling pollution in Kampala, we are on our own. For a country whose public health system leaves a lot to be desired – talk about the congested wards and empty pharmacy shelves – we joke too much about disease prevention. Lately, President Yoweri Museveni and First Lady Janet Kataaha Museveni wear masks when out in public, possibly because they know too well the dangers that lurk in our atmosphere. For purposes of uniformity and cohesion, maybe it should now be written enforcement that we all wear masks when out in public, to lessen the burden on our already-struggling and expensive health system.The post For a country without dependable public appeared first on The Observer.