Recent achievements registered by the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) were accidental rather and not caused by the much transformation efforts of the body.
According to parliamentary committee on commissions statutory authorities and state enterprises (Cosase) chairman Abdu Katuntu, Unra is an “extremely sick” body – with all sampled projects riddled with fraud and incompetency.
Katuntu today presented the report to parliament after 3 months of probing. The report, that was adopted by parliament recommends further probing of all projects under Unra.
“This institution can be described as extremely sick. Whatever can go wrong in an institution indeed went wrong in Unra. Fraud coupled with incompetency was the order of the day. Any achievement was more of an accident than deliberate.” Katuntu told parliament.
Katuntu further said that Unra’s negligence has seen contractors demand for compensation as a result of idle time on site and that consultants sent on sites were found to be incompetent, with some of them confessing not being well conversant with the laws of Uganda.
Parliament now wants Unra to tighten up the processes used to recruit the consultants. Katuntu singled out the Kampala-Entebbe expressway as one of the projects that embody gross mismanagement.
The cost of the 51.4km project is $479 million (Shs 1.7 trillion) which translated into a cost of $9.3 million (Shs 33 billion) per km. According to the report, the contractor solicited the bid, conducted the feasibility study and design and eventually won the contract without any competitive bidding. The oversight, according to Katuntu led to inflated costs.
“This is one of the most expensive roads in the world. Rt Hon speaker there was no competitive bidding at all. And this in our view resulted in inflated costs making the project unbelievably expensive. The consultant engineer to supervise the project was also offered by the same Chinese. The committee further learnt that Unra had to hire another consultant in addition to the one procured by the Chinese to carry out some supervision.
Katuntu also reported to parliament how six Chinese companies traded in Shs 47 billion meant for land compensations. Parliament now wants Unra to take over the management of compensating project affected persons and has warned the entity against contracting any outsider.
Katuntu however told the House that government needs to keep a close eye on this exercise revealing that some Unra employees rush to purchase land in areas where new roads are planned to pass and later come to demand for compensation.
MPs demanded that all contractors, consultants and staff named in defrauding Unra be blacklisted and banned from conducting business with government for five years.
“The issues of Unra need to be looked into deeper, even the current management aren’t angels. I don’t think they were genetically modified not to steal.” said Kasambya county MP Mbwatekamwa Gaffa.
Kampala Central MP, Mohammad Nsereko blames Unra woes on government which he accused of mortgaging Uganda in the name of attracting investors.