Entebbe-Express Way
The Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) has blamed the delays on the completion of lighting along Entebbe Expressway on the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions that hampered transportation of materials and promised that works will be completed in March 2023.
This was disclosed in a meeting between Lawmakers on Parliament’s Physical Infrastructure Committee and officials from Ministry of Works and Transport and Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), who had been summoned to update Parliament on the progress of installation of lighting and curbing vandalism along the road.
Joseph Otim, Director Road Maintenance at UNRA said that lighting has been a big concern on this road and the people are concerned that it is causing insecurity, and although there is a provision of lighting the entire expressway in the contract, the contractor has faced challenges.
“They had promised to complete these works by January 2023 but this wasn’t possible; they had their own internal challenges. This was included in the improvement of works are on-going. All materials were delivered amidst delays and assembling of different components is ongoing. Completion of the works is expected to be by end of March 2023,” said Otim.
This followed queries raised by MPs like Robert Kasolo, Vice Chairperson Physical Infrastructure questioned the delays of installation of lighting saying this has caused insecurity along the road.
He said: “I have been on that road, the security they envisaged is lacking and when it comes to the lighting, it has become a nightmare. The road is dark that makes it insecure for people to use. Many things are happening to do with insecurity like waylaying people, and most of the accidents are caused because when a stone is hit on the vehicle, the motorist panics and loses control.”
The same sentiments were shared by Roland Ndyomugenyi (Rukiga County) who criticised UNRA for not prioritizing the issue of lighting along the road arguing, “But this issue of poor lighting at the Expressway is a huge issue, it doesn’t only affect the vandalism, but also thieves on the expressway are now rampant and it is something that isn’t being taken seriously by UNRA and yet it is very important. Even some of the accidents that are happening are because of poor lighting. So I would suggest we get concrete commitment about lighting on the expressway.”
Yusuf Nsibambi (Mawokota South) called on UNRA to consider the option of Corporate Social Responsibility like construction of social amenities like a hospital or school, to enable residents located along the expressway own up and protect the road against vandalism, saying a report by UNRA that indicates that out of the 44,000 signs and markings, 30,000 signs are vandalized within a year, describing the figures as alarming.
Nsibambi argued, “There is a principle in Environmental Law called the tragedy of commons, specifically meaning that the community can’t protect anything where they have no interest. That Entebbe expressway, to the communities around, they have no tangible interests at all. Essentially, we have to address that, whether you take them to Kitalya Prisons, incidentally you will be paying for their food as a taxpayer, that is double jeopardy, so we have to address this squarely.”
Minister of Works and Transport, Katumba Wamala while explaining the delays on lighting cited a provision in the law that requires that before materials are brought into the country, they must be inspected from the country of origin, but during the Covid-19 lockdown, there was no movements, so these items couldn’t be inspected from countries of origin by the contractor.
“So when they landed here, they had a problem with URA saying you didn’t do a pre-shipment inspection, so there was a back and forth argument until the matter was brought to my table and I wrote to URA to request to do this inspection here because it was causing more delay yet the materials were already here, so eventually they overcame some of those challenges and the materials were released to them,” said Katumba.
He also admitted that the issue of vandalism is a very big problem country wide, where UNRA constructs roads and accompanies them with all markings and signs but before the end of the year, all markings are gone and called for behavioural change, amo0ngst communities.
“But I pick your recommendations of looking for materials which aren’t attractive for us. It is what the Americans are using, they may be expensive, but they might be more durable. Because you can’t use any other materials because the markings and signs have to be of international standards requirements, they must be of specific size, reflection. There is a study being conducted on alternative materials for using on road signs,” said Katumba.
