Kampala roads too old to not have potholes – KCCA boss

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT  | Much of Kampala’s road network is dotted with potholes because the roads are too old and need of reconstruction, according to the acting KCCA Executive Director, Andrew Kitaka. He told URN in an exclusive interview that there is no way the roads can be pothole free because of their age. Kitata said the current rains have not helped the situation because most of the resealed potholes wear out fast.

There has been uproar on social media because of the sorry state of city roads. Last week, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah took to twitter complaining about potholes on city roads.  In a response tweet, KCCA said it was intensifying maintenance works across the city.

However, Kitaka says that the long lasting solution would be reconstructing old city roads. He says KCCA is in talks with the African Development Bank to construct about 67 km of road in the city, adding that they are also engaging the Department of International Development of the United Kingdom to reconstruct the same number of kilometers

KCCA receives about Shillings 30 billion from Uganda Road Fund-URF to work on city roads; an amount it says is insufficient. However, URF also says it doesn’t receive sufficient funding yet it has to serve different agencies.

In the 2017/2018 financial year, the fund received Shillings 417 billion despite budgeting for Shillings 800 billion. In 2018/2019, the fund received Shillings 542 billion out of the Shillings 1 trillion the fund had asked for.  This financial year, the budget of the fund was cut to Shillings 470 billion.

However, KCCA has worked with some partners to reconstruct certain city roads. This year, KCCA commissioned reconstruction of 32 roads across the city with funding from the Kampala Institution Infrastructure Development Project 2 (KIIDP 2).

The reconstruction involves expanding some roads to four lanes, establishing pedestrian walk ways and setting up traffic light points. They include Babiiha Avenue, Ntinda-Nakawa Road, Kabuusu-Bunamwaya-Lweza road and Kulambiro ring road, Lukuli-Nanganda Road among others.

Construction at these roads hasn’t progressed as anticipated and this according to KCCA has been caused by interruption from heavy rains. So far, contractors have only relocated utilities something that should have been done about two months back according to the work plan.

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