Leaders and security guards in Katabi Town Council have asked pastors and bar owners to follow the rules about noise pollution.
Ronald Kalema, the head of the Katabi Town Council, says that enforcement officers will start going to businesses and churches that don’t follow the rules and take away their loudspeakers.
We cannot continue talking about the same thing all the time. “Katabi Town Council will become part of Entebbe City in the future, so we must address our physical planning mistakes and noise pollution, among others, to have a clean, well-planned, and conducive city,” Kalema said.
Geoffrey Muganga, the Town Clerk, says that they have gotten several complaints about noise pollution, especially from Pentecostal churches that hold overnight prayers, bars, and nightclubs that are open all night.
According to the latest figures, there are over 200 bars and nearly 80 Pentecostal churches in Katabi Town Council.
Muganga says that bars will have to stop playing loud music by midnight, not 10 p.m. as was previously said. Nightclubs will have to stop by 2 a.m., and churches with temporary buildings in residential areas must move right away.
Ivan Wanda, the lead pastor at Bethel Tabernacle Church in Abaita Ababiri and Joe Walusimbi, said that the noise regulations should be reviewed and increased to 100 decibels during the day and 85 decibels at night for places of worship. At the moment, the rules say that places of worship in residential areas can be as loud as 60 decibels during the day and 40 decibels at night.
But Walusimbi argued that the regulations are unrealistic because they, for instance, did not consider the inability of pastors and communities to set up soundproofed buildings because most worshippers are low-income earners or live below the poverty line.
The pastors said this at a press conference, where they also asked NEMA, the police, and Katabi enforcement officers to educate them and other wrongdoers, like bar owners, about the law.
Three months ago, pastors Edward Mukisa and Herman Ssebunje from Nkumba Miracle Centre in Katabi Town Council were arrested and charged with noise pollution. According to NEMA, the two pastors were found conducting services above the permissible level of 40 decimals.
The National Environment Act of 2019 says that people who make too much noise can be fined up to 50,000 currency points, which is the same as 1 billion shillings, or sent to jail for up to 15 years, or both.
The Internal Security Officer of Katabi Town Council, Saaka Mukiibi, says that the unbearable noise levels pose a security threat to residents and travellers whose calls for help may not be heard when they are attacked by criminals. Mukiibi adds that some criminals hide in churches or bars after committing crimes, especially at night.