Road construction and security are Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA’s) top priorities in this new tenure, the executive director Jennifer Musisi has announced.
Musisi, whose contract was renewed earlier this month and extended from April 2017 to April 2020, made the remarks today while commissioning the upgraded Kira road in Kampala.
“Our energy this time round is going to be put on road construction and ensuring that there is security too on the roads. We are going to raise money from government, investors and other development partners to achieve this,” Musisi said at the function in Bukoto.
The two-and-a-half-years’ road project that cost Shs 8 billion was part of the Shs 484.23 billion Kampala Institutional and Infrastructure Development Project (KIIDP)-II, approved in 2014 to work on most of the tributary drainage channels and reshape various road junctions to ease traffic flow in the city.
Kira road, in accordance to the project guidelines, has traffic lights in positions where a roundabout would have been, Musisi said. Besides the traffic lights stand solar-powered streetlights, and according to the KCCA boss, the option of solar is both because of environmental concerns and saving money that would have been paid in electricity bills.
The road also has security cameras installed alongside the traffic lights to monitor road users, a move that is going to apply to the rest of other roads that are going to be upgraded.
Traffic police boss Stephen Kasiima said during the function that the security cameras were going to help police in the fight against crime.
“These cameras can show us who, which car or motorcycle used the road at which particular time and we are going to use this information to track down criminals, especially boda boda riders,” Kasiima said.
While addressing mourners at the vigil of fallen former police spokesman Andrew Felix Kaweesi in Kulambiro last month, President Yoweri Museveni ordered for the installation of security cameras on major roads in country so as to curb down on crime.
Kaweesi was gunned down together with his bodyguard Kenneth Erau and driver Godfrey Wambewo near his home in Kulambiro. Other roads to be upgraded under the programme include Nakawa-Ntinda, Bunnamwaya-Lweza, and Wandegeya-Nakulabye (already under construction).
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