In a bid to boost periodical maintenance of roads, the ministry of Finance has released Shs 130.5bn for the first quarter of financial year 2018/19.
Dr Michael Odongo, the executive director, Uganda Road Fund (URF), said the disbursement represents a 29 per cent increment over the same period last financial year.
The agencies that are to benefit include Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), district local governments, and municipal councils.
Odongo said URF has just concluded the signing of performance agreements with government agencies, 127 districts and 14 municipalities to ensure this money is put to good use.
As usual, UNRA remains the biggest recipient of the road maintenance funds for at Shs 75.1bn, followed by KCCA at Shs 7.4bn. UNRA is expected to maintain 17,803km under routine manual maintenance; 479km under mechanical maintenance, 118km under periodic and 273km will be maintained using low cost sealing.
Nathan Byanyima, a URF’s board member, explained that 13 ferries will be maintained, 10 mobile bridges will be fixed, 12km street lights, road markings, among others.
KCCA’s 234km will be maintained under manual and mechanical maintenance. The 127 districts, 41 municipalities and 214 town councils shall maintain a combined scope of 39,846km using combined manual and mechanical technologies, Byanyima said.
URF has also decried poor performance of district road committees, which are supposed to consider and approve district-wide annual road maintenance programmes. These committees are said not to be functioning well, affecting works at most of the districts.
“The failure of these committees to sit has led to failure of accountability, the breakdown of road networks, delays and failure to guide transparency and funding for road maintenance programmes,” Odongo (below) said.
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