President Yoweri Museveni has lashed out at MPs for rejecting the plan to construct roads in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), saying the roads are aimed at boosting trade between the two nations.
He said the project will have to be conducted.
The President made the remarks in his speech to commemorate the 58th Independence Day celebrations at State House Entebbe.
“The other day, I saw people in Parliament saying why is this man building roads in Congo when we have got bad roads here? Yes we have our poor roads here, we also have good roads but in order to build roads, we need to trade in Congo. We aren’t going there to preach the gospel. The roads to Congo are there to build business, to enable us build our own roads,” said President Museveni.
On Monday, 5th October 2020, Government tabled a supplementary request of Shs3.4Trn with Shs200Bn dedicated for the construction of 223km of roads in the DRC following a bilateral agreement between Uganda and the DRC to implement strategic infrastructure projects.
This amount is Uganda’s contribution of 20% of the roads project. The total project cost is $334.5m therefore Uganda’s contribution amounts to $66.9m which is approximately Shs254Bn.
The proposal received fierce protest from MPs like Cecilia Ogwal (Dokolo Woman MP) who expressed shock at Government’s decision to prioritize roads in the DRC over roads within Uganda that need urgent attention.
She told Gen. Katumba Wamala (Minister of Works and Transport that despite the economic value of the roads in the DRC all the outstanding urgent roads in Uganda need to be fixed before embarking on the regional infrastructural project.
Now, President Museveni has fired back at the remarks saying, “How can anybody talk about this because it can even annoy our neighbors. People shouldn’t talk carelessly. We are going to build those roads. We are earning about US$500 Million a year from DRC. How can you stop me from partnering with DRC to develop roads there that support our trade?”
“The terrible roads are hindering business. We will also sell to them our electricity. We need that road badly. The people of Eastern Congo need it. The same with South Sudan area need it badly,” added Museveni.
Recently, Cabinet approved the construction and upgrading of the national road from Kasindi section at the border to Beni (80km) and the integration of the Beni-Butembo axis(54km) to the national road and the Bunagana(border) to Ruchuru- Goma road (89km).
The Cabinet decision follows President Museveni bilateral talks with newly elected DRC President, Felix Tshisekedi at State House in Entebbe last year where the two leaders signed agreements to work on key road networks connecting the two countries to ease business.
