KAMPALA: The Deputy Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Thomas Tayebwa has directed the Minister for Kampala Capital City Authority and Metropolitan Affairs, Hon. Hajjat Minsa Kabanda to present a statement on how much money the Kampala Capital City Authority has received for road construction and maintenance for the last 3 years, which roads were constructed and maintained using the funds and the current status of each road.
While Chairing the Plenary on Tuesday April 18th 2023, the Deputy Speaker said he has received complaints from the members about the dire state of Ugandan roads and how they are now affecting the lives of the citizens.
“We have potholes of every design, every size, the beautiful ones, the ugly ones, the deep ones, shallow ones, the wide and narrow ones. They are all in Kampala.” said Rt Hon. Tayebwa.
“Hon. Linos came to me complaining that some men are no longer functioning properly because their backs are broken because of the potholes. Hon. Cecilia told me that the women are producing prematurely (miscarrying) because of the potholes.” Hon. Tayebwa added
On Monday, April 17th 2023, Ugandans led by a popular cartoonist Dr. Spire Ssentongo stormed social media particularly on Twitter and Facebook and exposed the impeccable roads in Uganda’s Capital in a campaign dubbed Kampala Pothole Exhibition in protest of the bad state of roads in Kampala.
With over 14,000 tweets, Ugandans tagged all the government authorities connected to road works including the Ministry of Works and Transport, the Kampala Capital City Authority, Uganda National Roads Authority, KCCA Directors and the Lord Mayor, and asked for a proper accountability of the funds provided for road maintenance in the city.
KCCA is accused for requesting for lots of money for road maintenance and repairs every financial year but failed to fix the potholes which have caused a lot of traffic Jam in the city, endless accidents and many sorts of damages
This forced the Kampala Capital City Authority Executive Director on Tuesday afternoon, to issue a statement on ‘the state of Kampala City roads and what interventions KCCA is undertaking to make the situation better, in the short, medium and long term.
While addressing the Press at City Hall in Kampala, the KCCA Executive Director Ms. Doroth Kisaka said KCCA, routinely monitors and collects data on the state of the City roads through what they call road condition surveys and makes plans to fix damaged roads based on available resources or budgets, the primary source being the Uganda Road fund.
“We cannot trivialise the issue of potholes on our roads. KCCA is aware that potholes drive up road user costs through frequent vehicle repairs, long travel times, high accident rates, and others. Kampala City has a total road network of 2,100KM, of which only 30% are paved roads while the rest (70%) are unpaved or earth roads. It is worth noting that most of our paved roads have served far beyond their full lifespan of twenty years.” Ms. Kisaka said.
She noted that these roads are due for overhaul or reconstruction, which explains the high prevalence of potholes and other road damages. The situation has not been helped by the increased traffic levels on the roads which in turn causes increased wear and tear.
“KCCA is currently constrained by the limited budget provisions to turn around this situation. By December 2022, KCCA had recorded an area of 8,500 Square meters of potholes, spread across the five divisions.” KCCA ED said.
Find the full KCCA Statement on State of Kampala Roads at @KCCAUG, the Official KCCA twitter handle.
centralupdates31@gmail.com
