Motorists decry poor state of Sir Apollo Kaggwa road

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The sorry state of the stretch between Caltec Academy school and Hot loaf bakery along Sir Apollo Kaggwa road has irked motorists. Sir Apollo Kaggwa road stretches from Bwaise roundabout to Gaddafi National Mosque.

However, the road has deep potholes from the junction connecting to Caltec Academy school to the Hot Loaf bakery near the YY bus terminal. The same junction at Caltec Academy connects to Bukesa road and Sepiriya Mukasa road leading to the Law Development Center.

However, the area becomes waterlogged whenever its rains because of the huge potholes making it impassable for motorists and boda boda riders leading to congestion. Traffic also builds up at Hot loaf bakery near the YY bus terminal, where motorists take between 10 to 15 minutes to cross the junction connecting to Nsalo road because motorists use one side of the road to dodge the deep big potholes in the middle of the road.

Swaib Ssanga, a driver of YY buses says that the state of the road slows their work at the terminal because it takes a lot of time for a bus to move from the terminal resulting from congestion caused by the potholes.

Hassan Ssemakula, a taxi driver says that he now visits the garage more than twice weekly because of the deep potholes along the road. Ssemakula has asked the Kampala Capital City Authority to at least fix the potholes using murrum in midterm as they source funding to rehabilitate the road.

Andrew Mukasa, a taxi driver says that it’s a shame for the City authorities to have such roads in the middle of the country’s capital. He appealed to the city authorities to use murram and fill up the potholes as they wait for the funds to reconstruct the road.

Henry Kakuru, a boda boda rider at the YY bus terminal said that they are often knocked down by vehicles as try to negotiate the many potholes. Kakuru wants the city authorities to use the holiday season when there is low traffic to rehabilitate the road.

Sir Apollo Kaggwa road is one of the many roads, which are in a very bad state in Kampala. The other affected roads include Wandegeya-Bombo road at Kubbiri roundabout, which is also filled with huge potholes, at Kawempe near Riham company and Mawanda road as one approaches Kamwokya.

KCCA is mandated to construct and maintain city roads. As part of maintenance, they patch potholes in an attempt to make the roads passable. But this maintenance method is inefficient as the potholes soon reappear, especially during rainy seasons.

In October this year, the KCCA Executive Director Dorothy Kisaka said that Kampala’s roads are too old, several counting over 50 years, and hence prone to constant breakdown. She said they need massive funding to revamp the entire city road network.

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