Ugandans Rage Over Roads: 'Not A Pothole But A Pond'

The huge craters that pockmark many of the roads in Uganda's capital have become the subject of a Twitter trend.

Using #KampalaPotholeExhibition, residents have been sharing images of the city's many potholes that their vehicles have to gingerly make their way around or through.

The local authority has acknowledged the problem, saying the cavities amount to 8,500 sq m (91,493 sq ft) in area.

But it added that it did not have the funds to fill them all.

When academic, writer and cartoonist Dr Jimmy Spire Ssentongo started the campaign, even he could never have imagined the kind of material that would turn up.

"That is not a pothole! That is a pond!" he responded to one person who shared a photo.

Some have turned the photos into memes with graphics added - like ships sailing across potholes or people chilling on the beach, complete with palm trees, next to other ones.

The florid descriptions accompanying the images - including details such as a pothole's age - might be satirical, but they also point to how long a particular road has been in bad shape.

Some potholes feel like they have become permanent geographical features, creating a series of mini lakes whenever it rains.

A few weeks ago, when I tweeted that in one part of town there were potholes within potholes, one follower responded that the ones on the road he regularly uses had become stairs.

"We have potholes of every design, and size, deep, shallow, wide, narrow, filled with water and dry ones, they are all in Kampala," the deputy speaker of parliament, Thomas Tayebwa, has been quoted as saying when calling for a minister to explain the situation.