Situated near sensitive installations like State House Entebbe, army bases and Entebbe International Airport, among others, KEE is in a prime neighbourhood. Yet from the early evening deep into the dark of night until daybreak, KEE becomes a poisoned chalice – a magnet for violent thuggery and vandalism.
A few days ago, a United Nations (UN) security advisory on insecurity on KEE went viral. The July 19 advisory warned its staffers against using the KEE from 10pm to 6am, owing to a spike in violent crime incidents along the expressway.
More striking was the advisory’s assessment of the stakeholders mandated to secure KEE. The advisory stated: “Police response time to emergencies on the Expressway varies from less than 01 hour to over 02 hours. Security patrols by Pinnacle Service Providers, and Uganda Police Force (UPF) are uncoordinated.”
KEE is Uganda’s first toll road; collection of the toll fees started in January 2022. Gen Katumba Wamala, the minister for Works and Transport, noted that the fees would go towards debt repayment, maintenance and security of the road. In January this year, the government reported it had collected a tidy sum of Shs 34 billion.
Unfortunately, the glittery cash cow, all 51km of it, is without street lighting. In November 2022, Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) kicked off works to install lights along KEE with expected completion in March 2023. In a more recent update in May this year, UNRA again announced it had commenced installation of the streetlights.
Since its opening in 2018, KEE remains plagued by waves of criminality. This February, UNRA, led by Minister Katumba Wamala met with the parliamentary committee on physical infrastructure. UNRA informed the parliamentarians that nearly 70 per cent of the available fencing for the expressway had been vandalised – due to insufficient lighting on the road.
In September 2019, President Yoweri Museveni blasted the police over insecurity on KEE, following the shocking murder of Joshua Ruhegyera Nteyireho and Merina Tumukunde. The two victims were found shot dead in their car on the KEE.
Museveni in his address revealed Nteyireho was his nephew and vowed that the killers, whom he disparaged as stupid pigs, would rue the day they turned to crime. At the burial of the victims, the army chief of staff, Maj. Gen Leopold Kyanda, thundered that the killers were jokers seeking to destabilize the peace President Museveni had fought to bring.
As the country reeled from the high-profile murder, the police announced that one of their own was a key suspect in the murders. The ‘stupid pig,’ the joker was from within. In July 2021, UNRA contracted the private firm, Pinnacle Security, to provide security along KEE – a move the police welcomed as normal.
In June 2022, a lawyer and activist, Michael Aboneka, sued the ministry of Works and Transport (MoWT) and UNRA, accusing them of failing to light up the KEE.
In his petition, Aboneka argued, “…the darkness that descends on the said roads at night due to the lack of streetlights renders them treacherous for motorists and all road users as they are susceptible to accidents and has further attracted criminality, which is a threat and danger to the life of plaintiff and all other road users,” reported The Observer.
In October 2022, following public outcry over the rampant attacks including daylight attacks on the expressway, police held a crisis meeting during which the respective police commanders in charge of the most problematic spots on the road were put on the spot.
The police commanders argued that their hands were tied owing to a MoWT directive that every vehicle apart from the president’s convoy had to pay the KEE road toll fees. Swiftly shifting the blame with their tied hands, the police commanders argued that they did not have the funds to pay the toll fees.
Uganda Radio Network, a media house, quoted one of the commanders, “…we have been receiving these reports of thugs, especially from Busega and at Nambigirwa bridge. We would have intervened but we are restricted by the directive… as you know, we can’t afford to pay toll fees for patrols we would deploy on that road.”
In short, the responsible police commanders casually acknowledged they know the dangerous hotspots along the KEE but ‘the man with the key has gone.’
Speaking to Uganda Radio Network, minister Wamala rubbished the police claims and clarified that police patrol cars designated for KEE did not have to pay but police had consistently failed to comply with UNRA’s directive that the police furnish UNRA with the particulars of the respective patrol vehicles.
The police crisis meeting also addressed the failure of the private contractor, Pinnacle Security, to keep KEE safe. The police commanders observed that criminals had mastered the timing and sound of the Pinnacle Security vehicles. Amazing – the police have the intelligence but that dastardly man – ‘the man with the key has gone.’
Pinnacle Security took another punch when Wamala remarked to URN that the public should consider suing Pinnacle over the insecurity since Pinnacle was hired to secure KEE. It must be nice to sidestep national responsibility in a crisis meeting.
There we remain, paying the KEE road toll – proud of our fine road during the day – wary of it when night falls.
Dear reader, should you chance upon ‘the man with the key’, tell him the KEE users whose hands pay the toll diligently – those hands are tired of being tied.
*The Man with the Key Has Gone! is a 1993 book written by renowned medic and entrepreneur, Dr. Ian Clarke on his experience setting up a hospital in rural Uganda.
The writer is a tayaad muzzukulu
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