Lango MPs concerned about delayed construction of Apac-Lira road

Lira, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Members of the Lango Parliamentary Group have given a one-month ultimatum to the contractor of the Apac-Lira-Puranga road to start construction.

During a site visit on Wednesday, the MPs were concerned that the contractor Gulsan Construction Company had not started construction works.

The 100.1km road worth 416 Billion Shillings was commissioned in October last year by President Yoweri Museveni and construction was supposed to commence immediately. However since then, there hasn’t been any activity.

Samuel Opio Acuti, the Kole North Member of Parliament noted that the contractor is operating with only 50% of the staff despite being behind schedule. He says that they are surprised that the contractor had never briefed district officials and UNRA about the progress of construction.

Jane Aceng, the Lira City Woman MP and Judith Alyek, the Kole District Woman MP who is also the Chairperson Lango Parliamentary Group warned the contractor against doing shoddy work when they resume construction.

Kizinoglu Burak, the project manager at Gulsan attributed the delays to the changes in designs for a specific section of the road. He told the MPs that the approved designs for most parts of the road are missing and construction work cannot commence.

He however said that they have the capacity and enough funds to complete the project in due time.

The missing design is for a 30km section provided by UNRA for the contractor to work on.

However, the consultant, Dar Al Handasah consultants confirmed having given the designs to the contractor to be able to proceed with the work.

The MPs gave the contractor one month time to have started construction or else action will be taken against the contractor.

According to Uganda’s road status report of June 2020, Lango sub-region emerged the least with only 151km paved roads in the entire sub-region.

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