The controversial parliamentary first regional sitting, to take stock of the electorates’ concerns, kicked off in Gulu City last Wednesday with a list of 36 area—Northern Uganda—specific demands raised. Key among the concerns, which can be copied and pasted to other regions where the House will be sitting, included the broken local governments roads and bridges network which has left majority rural dwellers on the brink. Analysis of several policy documents reveals that millions to billions of shillings are allocated annually for roads maintenance but which money seeps through the ground, writes Frederic Musisi and Taibot Marko
For more than a month now, the Inspectorate of Government (IG) regional office in Mbale has been butting heads with city authorities to avail documents related to the procurement or construction of key roads in the area.
“We will send them (documents) over. We sent them. We forgot but you will have them by close of business today,” Mbale city authorities have been promising, according to one IG official inquiring into the roads construction tenders.
The tenders include, Shs69m renovation of the Sleeping Beauty roundabout along the Mbale – Tororo road, for which beautification works, according IG officials, were under the supervision of the Mbale city spokesperson but the city town clerk, the top technocrat, indicated had no idea about. All requests to the city council to surrender among others the project Bills of Quantities have been disregarded.
Works on the circular road junction started during the fy2020/2021 and three years later there is no clear progress report whether it was completed or not. A visit to the site equally reveals nothing to the effect.
The second tender is the 1.3km Kaguta road in Malare Cell in Industrial Division in Mbale city. The road is named after President Museveni having used it as an escape route during the 1980s guerilla war. While launching factories in adjacent Mbale Industrial park in August 2023, he tasked city authorities for it to be tarmacked.
Rehabilitation—grading and compressing the surface—of the road started early this year but sometime in March residents apprehended the several individuals including the Mbale City roads inspector ferrying construction materials off the site.
The residents handed over the suspects to police, but IG officials told this newspaper last week that the roads inspector was bailed out by the city town clerk. The IGG eventually interdicted the roads inspector who remains in office, while the case is on the verge of being thrown out after city authorities have failed to comply to testify against their colleague.
Even for the civil works that were undertaken, residents are wary that it won’t be long before the road falls apart.
“They just dug up the road, added murram, pressed the surface and left. When the heavy rains start everything will be washed away,” the Malere village LC1, Mr Rogers Watuwa said, adding: “When the President was here last year he told authorities to construct the road, but we were surprised to see them just grading the road and then, we later caught one of their own stealing materials.”
The road is a key artery for residents in Malere village to cross to and from Mbale city to the north, and its deplorable state previously had turned into a nightmare, particularly during rainy seasons, including hindering children from going to school on the side of the city.
“Even after they started working on the road they later abandoned it, and it wasn’t until officials from the IGG started squeezing them that they came back to finish the work. Still the work is not completed, but they have not come back here again,” Mr Alex Ndege, a resident of the area added. “We think this is substandard work and these officials need to be pressed.”
All falling down
Farthest in Bulembe Cell in Nabuyong Ward in Mbale City Northern Division along the Mbale – Kumi road, residents living along the 3km Kampala road have been choking on dust for years while city authorities continue to promise to tarmac it.
“This is one of the busiest roads in Mbale but they keep promising to work on it. I wish they use the same speed they come to harass us on payment of local service taxes,” said Mr James Magosha, the Nabuyonga Cell, LC1.
The poor and shoddy state of local government roads in Mbale City, to the east of the country, cuts across the 145 districts and 11 cities including Kampala, across the country.
In West Nile, a large network of roads in the sub region have become impassable due to poor maintenance coupled with the onset of the heavy rains which is currently threatening the ferry operations due to the increased water levels.
This, as district authorities continue to lament that the money meant for regular road maintenance disbursed by the Uganda Road Fund (URF) is inadequate to facilitate effective road maintenance.
The URF is a government agency mandated to finance routine and periodic maintenance of public roads in the country
In the financial year 2020/2021, Obongi district received Shs283 million after the indicative planning figures of Shs 291 million. This was for maintaining 113km of district roads and 117.3km of community access roads. During the following fiscal year 2021/2022, the district received the same amount for maintaining similar kilometers of road network.
During the fy2022/2023, there was a drop in funding from Shs290million to only Shs148million. This was meant to maintain 128.3km of district roads, 39.2km of Obongi town council roads and 276.4km of community access roads at the lower local governments.
The Obongi district vice chairperson, Mr Louis Drale Okunzi told Daily Monitor that due to the shortfall in funding the district has only been maintaining roads for 6 months instead of 12 months, adding that they have resorted to appealing to the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra)—whose mandate is to limited to national roads—to take a chunk of the local government roads.
“We have written several letters to UNRA requesting them to take up maintenance of their roads, especially at the ferry landing site, if that road is not worked on well, the ferry operation would stop, and yet we do not want to see the ferry operations stop,” Mr Okunzi said.
According to the releases by URF, in the second quarter of the last fy2023/2024, the district had Shs77.5m yet it had an Indicative Planning Figures (IPF) of Sh148.2m. District roads were allocated Shs15m against IPF of Shs57.6m; town council roads Shs9.4m against IPF of Shs37.6m; while the community access roads were allocated Shs52.9m.
Neighbouring Adjumani district, according to URF releases for the last fy2023/2024 quarter two releases, received Shs193.8m against IPF of Shs469.1m. Its district roads were allocated Shs58.6m against IPF of Shs224.3m; town council roads Shs36.7m against Shs146.3m; and community access roads were allocated Shs98.4m.
The Adjumani district acting roads engineer, Mr Nick Afayo told this newspaper in an interview that the funds received are inadequate against the total road network of 1,180km of roads.
Deteriorating fast
“At the end of the financial year we received Shs469million shillings, but last financial year there was a drop in the IPF initially Adjumani district used to receive Shs1billion but due to the introduction of the Shs 1billion of the rehabilitation grand,” Mr Afayo said.
For the 1,180km road network to be in a fair and motorable condition, he said the district needs not less than Shs15 billion.
To the east, Terego district received Shs127.9m against IPF of Shs238.9m. Of this, district roads were allocated Shs29.3m and Leju Town council roads received Shs9.4m after budgeting for Shs37.6m.
The Terego district chairperson, Mr Wilfred Saka described the allocations as a “big drop” up from Shs500million that the district has been receiving. He noted that the challenge facing the district is the lack of equipment for road maintenance.
“The road from Kubala to Wadra in Maracha and passing to Congo does not need to die, it’s a major road, and that road is our lifeline leading to a major market, We have a major UNRA road running from Manibe to Owafa, we have another road of Wandi to Rhino camp which is also a major road being used by humanitarian workers,” Mr Saka said.
Across the country, roads are falling apart, and recent heavy rains and flooding are accelerating what is already a rapid decline.
A report by the parliamentary Physical Infrastructure committee on the state of transport infrastructure (roads, bridges and railway) in Northern Uganda tabled at the August House sitting in Gulu last Wednesday, detailed that the roads network in most local governments was in fair to poor condition.
“The committee observed that in the fy2023/2024 the Central government allocated Shs1b to local governments for rehabilitation of roads and this year the same amount has been allocated,” the report noted.
The committee noted, the reported reads that: “that only districts have road equipment while cities and Municipal councils rely on a bureaucratic process of requesting for equipment from the Executive Director, Unra, since the district equipment is always utilised with the Provision of the ShsIbn and money is released of the sometime.”
Over the years the government has been buying roads equipment—motor graders, vibro rollers, wheel rollers, and water bowsers— for distribution to local governments to facilitate periodic maintenance, but over time stories have abound of lack of money for fueling or servicing. In fact, several district headquarters are junkyards of these equipment.
In 2012, the Ministry of Works spent $100m to acquire Changlin motor graders from China’s FAW Group Corp. in 2017, the ministry procured another 1,151 pieces of equipment from Japan. In June this year, Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja handed over another 14 pieces of equipment that cost Shs34b.
The broken roads and broken bridges network across the country comes at a time when the Executive is pushing through its logic defying plans to merge the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra), back to its parent Ministry of Works and Transport, which was established to facilitate construction and rehabilitation of roads nationally, and on the other hand streamline Uganda Road Fund (URF) which complements rehabilitation of roads at the districts through routine financing and periodic maintenance.
Roads of despair
The dysfunctional roads at the local government level particularly hamper children from going to schools, electorates accessing health facilities, or farmers ably taking their produce to the nearest town centers where buyers are converged; compounding poverty and social service delivery, a testament of the failed 27 years of decentralisation and the long way Uganda has to coming nearer to the lofty dream of the 2040 vision of Middle Income.
One of the criticisms against decentralisation, 27 years after it was first rolled out, is that the quality of public service delivery remains less than desirable while some district local governments are too poor to generate reasonable revenues which they send to the center and are reallocated and disbursed from the Treasury every quarter of the year. This is peppered with inefficiency—the hallmark of a dysfunctional public service, corruption and the absence of proper accountability.
The Uganda Road Fund (URF) board chairperson, Mr Simon Amajuru Madraru however stated that the bulk of the money, at least 60 percent, in their kitty is absorbed by Unra while the remainder goes to funding the maintenance of city roads, municipality roads, district roads and community access roads.
He also noted that it is easier to spend more money on maintaining already-developed roads than opening new roads.
“Whether it is a murram Road, whether it’s a tarmac Road, maintenance is supposed to be the most important thing if we are supposed to preserve investment in the road infrastructure now, the current funding is much, much below the required level. That’s why roads continue to fall beyond repair, because the investments in maintaining those already developed are very, very high” Mr Amajuru added.
He attributed the poor conditions of roads in the country to inadequate funding by the government on rehabilitation.
“If Uganda was to spend adequate money to maintain all the roads in good conditions, both the tarmac roads, which are called the paved roads and also the murram, the gravel roads, we needed, not less than 1.2 trillion ceilings per year. This was 10 years ago, but as I speak now because more roads were created, that requirement has more than doubled but we currently stand at less than Shs400 billion” Mr Amajuru added.
Uganda’s road network is estimated at 159, 364km, out of which 138, 142km or 86 percent are said to be district, urban, and community access roads.
Across majority local government administrations there is even a bigger malaise; corruption and collusion by the roads committees, going by audit reports by the Auditor General and Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA).
The recent Auditor General’s report submitted to parliament in January detailed that 44 local governments planned “to rehabilitate 8,994km of roads using routine manual, routine mechanised and periodic maintenance at a cost of Sh17.8b, but only 5,773mm (64%) were rehabilitated at a cost of Shs3.4b.
For instance, the district roads committee comprises all the MPs in the district, the LC5 chairperson, the district engineer, chief administrative officer, and district engineers, who are charged with preparing, planning, reviewing and sanctioning tenders.
However, several officials attribute the failing roads network on the inadequate road maintenance funding that has consistently led to deferment of scheduled maintenance, especially periodic maintenance and other critical activities such as research and innovation, road safety, and Axle road control envisaged in Section 22 (1) of the URF Act.
The Mukono district L5, Reverend Peter Bakaluba Mukasa attributed the poor state of roads to the inadequate budget.
“The government has limitations on sending us money, so we cannot do all roads at the same time. We have roads for sub counties, town councils and municipalities in the district. In totality there are many roads to be worked on—upgrading or tarmacking,” Reverend Mukasa said.
He added: “As a district we have only one road unit (caterpillar grader) which is fully operational but has to be shared by all these entities. After using it we send it to sub counties…and so forth. Sometimes it breaks down and you have to wait until the money is available.”
This story was authored with the support from Action Aid International Uganda
