By Charles Onyango-Obbo

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Nearly three weeks ago, a vast garbage dump in Kiteezi outside the Uganda capital Kampala, collapsed. So far, almost 40 bodies have been dug out from under the pile that washed off.

There has been a lot of anger and agonising over the disaster. Daily Monitor, the country’s main independent newspaper, in a sobering report on Wednesday, showed how the problem of poor solid waste management was widespread in the country, and that a Kiteezi-like catastrophe was waiting to happen in other Ugandan cities and towns.

Authorities and aid workers said the collapse was triggered by heavy rainfall, but some independent experts say indications are it was caused by the explosion of methane gas that had built up in the deep bottom of the landfill.

The Kiteezi garbage dump might have had a most dramatic collapse, and Kampala today is one of the dirtiest cities in East Africa but looked at from a continental level, it – and Uganda in general – is not the worst. In fact, Kampala doesn’t even make it into the top 10 cities with the worst solid waste management problem in Africa.

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What Uganda does, however, is fit perfectly in the typology of what could be described as a “dross state” (or “refuse state”) – a country facing a crisis of open dumping, lack of recycling facilities, and insufficient waste collection systems due to insufficient funding, lack of technology, poor waste management, and bad governance.

The latter, bad governance, perhaps has the most intriguing link to the crisis of garbage. Without naming and shaming the “refuse states”, if one looks at the countries with the worst waste management, where pollution of the air and land is extensive, nearly 75 per cent of them happen to be in the bottom half of various African corruption rankings.

Put another way, a government where politicians and officials don’t steal from the people, or do so shyly (small, small) is likely to care more about them not living next to a high mound of stinky garbage. By contrast, a corrupt government also robs the people of their dignity and, therefore, wouldn’t care about them living in filth and pollution.

In fact, garbage might even be a tool for political control. Because filth is demoralising, it can break a people’s spirit and make them more acquiescent. And most people who spend years living in humble accommodations next to a stinky garbage pile, are not going to wake up the next day and move into an apartment with a view of the Botanical Gardens or a lake.

Garbage, then, is political. And it is power. It explains why, even in rich industrialised countries that claim to be democracies, marginalised communities and racially oppressed people are more likely to be the ones living in areas that have polluted waters, or next to industries that dump toxic waste (as happens in the USA, for example).

Along with corruption, once again nearly 75 percent of the countries in Africa that have cities with major garbage problems, are also highly indebted or in debt distress already.

Not surprising, because if you can’t manage your economy well enough to keep up payments on your debt, you probably cannot manage your solid waste competently – which in some ways is a harder task than keeping a clean book on debt.

A country like Somalia has a complicated garbage and pollution profile. Part of its crisis is because of its role as a dumping ground for Western and Asian toxic waste, which exacerbates its waste management issues. The primary reason for that is because for long Somalia was a failed state, and therefore with no government capacity to protect its waters and keep away toxic waste dumpers.

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The same thing cannot be said of some countries in West and North Africa where lots of toxic waste has been dumped. There, it is corruption. Toxic waste is a billion-dollar industry and a lucrative business for criminal networks. Along with seemingly legitimate waste-disposal deals some African governments have made, there are extensive illegal activities allowing loads of dangerous waste to be dumped in West and North African countries.

It is not just corrupt politicians and generals pocketing bribes to permit toxic waste dumping. In at least one case, a West African president allegedly took a large bribe to allow Western toxic waste to be dumped in his country, adversely affecting the health of his people.

It might not be significant, but one will notice a couple of other things in the list of the leading “refuse states”. In the majority of them, presidents have some of the longest convoys, nearing 100 vehicles, and the most fierce-looking guards. Ironically, they will usually have an ambulance in the convoy.

That will tell you that the president in the long convoys is not the wananchi-cuddling type; he or she is unlikely to hug an old woman or man who is wearing a t-shirt bearing their photograph during Independence Day celebration, perhaps fearing that they are unwashed and will infect them with a disease they got from living near a landfill.

Good old garbage is therefore a powerful prognostic tool. If you follow its smell, it will tell you a lot about the regime type you are dealing with; the policy choices it is likely to make, the relationship it has with the governed, its management of the economy, how long its fingers are, and its stewardship of the commonwealth.

A sage might say, you will know them by their garbage.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter@cobbo3