After a two-months’ review of its findings, the World Bank has agreed to lift its year-long suspension of funding to major road projects in the country.
Funding for the under-construction roads like Fortportal-Kamwenge was suspended by the World Bank over environmental abuse and sexual harassment of young girls by road workers.
But during an on-the-ground inspection of the Fort Portal- Kamwenge road on Thursday, February 16, World Bank Executive Director for Africa Andrew Bvumbe said that after a two months review of findings, the suspension will be lifted.
“We are happy to get the information from the horse’s mouth. We have noticed that most of the issues we raised have been addressed and that the relationship between the government and the people along this road project has improved,” Mvumbe told reporters.
Bvumbe, together with a team from the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra), met with different grievance committees along the road project and discovered that complaints ranging from compensation to other social issues had been duly addressed.
The inspection revealed that the issue of sexual harassment has been addressed with the help of police, Unra and local leaders, according to John Abigaba, the chairperson of the Kamwenge grievance committee. Two arrests and prosecutions have been made so far.
“The message is now clear. You touch these young girls and everyone in the community will tell you that [Allen] Kagina [Unra executive director] is coming for you. Now I am very sure our girls are safe,” Abigaba told a meeting at Bigodi.
Kagina told reporters in the western Kamwenge district that they have learnt useful lessons from this particular road project.
“These issues gave us an opportunity to learn. Each complaint raised here was a lesson that we can employ elsewhere. We have done assessment of these issues, we have met all the contractors and given them our new benchmarks,” Kagina said.