Members of the parliamentary committee on Physical Infrastructure have questioned the cost of rehabilitating Kampala Road in Entebbe Municipality.
During a tour on Thursday, the MPs led by Soroti East MP Moses Okia Attan and Entebbe Municipality MP Michael Kakembo querried the rehabilitation of road sections in Entebbe totaling to a mere 2.6 kilometres 13.5 billion shillings as too high.
Ronald Balimwezo Nsubuga the Nakawa East MP and shadow minister for lands and urban development, said that this cost for rehabilitating one kilometre comes to 5.2 billion shillings, much higher than the average cost of constructing a new road by Uganda National Roads Authority-UNRA.
The Ministry of Works and Transport figures indicate that the cost of constructing one kilometre of a tarmac road increased to 3.1 billion shillings in financial year 2018/2019 from shillings 1.5 billion in 2007 and 510 million shillings in 2000.
The unit cost of a road is determined by structural layers, location, surface, terrain, number of lanes, the purpose of the road and structure among others.
The MPs want to know why USMID roads are more expensive and yet they are mainly for rehabilitation.They also queried the absence of local contractors on Entebbe road projects.
The MPs raised the issue during an oversight visit of the implementation of projects under the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development-USMID Program in the municipality. USMID, being implemented in phases was first launched in the 2013/2014 financial year.
The first phase run upto to 2017/2018 financial year while the second phase, with funding of 335million USD from the World Bank, commenced in 2018/2019 and will end in the 2022/2023 financial year, covering 14 municipalities and 11 refugee hosting communities. The program aims at enhancing the institutional capacity of local governments, improved local infrastructure, urban planning and improving own source revenue generation.
Entebbe municipality has benefited from both phases. It has received a total of 21.6 billion shillings which includes the 13.5 billion shillings 2.6kiliometres.
The works in Entebbe cover period of 15 months and are being done by M/S China Wu Yi co. limited, supervised by M/S UB Consulting Engineers limited. China Wu Yi Co Ltd has also been contracted to rehabilitate some roads in Mubende and Masaka because it was awarded the contract for the three local governments put in the same cluster under USMID.
The MPs questioned the absence of a local firm in the projects in Entebbe.Betty Christine Nanfuka, the project manager and the Entebbe Municipal Engineer says local content has been catered for by subcontracting Armpass Technical Services, a Ugandan firm to do earth works and also using locally sourced materials such as culverts and crushed rocks.
She also justified the cost of the project, saying it also entails beautification of Mayor’s Garden and installing solar street lights.
Eng. Sam Owora, the Resident Engineer for the Rehabilitation network in Entebbe, Mubende and Masaka, says the contractor has to ensure all the roads for rehabilitation in Entebbe will have pedestrian walk ways, covered drains, conduits for utilities like Telecoms and IT, water and sewerage, electricity and installation of solar street lights.
However Balimwezo and some of the MPs insisted on seeing the bid documents and contract for further scrutiny.
Ministers of state for Housing and Urban Development, Obiga Kania and Sam Mayanja of Lands and the committee chairperson David Karubanga said there is a need to review the entire project and also the procurement of contractors to ensure Ugandan firms participate in each project, not clusters.
Kania says the technical team from the ministry will have to explain why they opted for contracting firms to handle clusters instead of individual local governments.
Entebbe Town Clerk, Charles Magumba, also urged MPs and the lands ministers to ensure funds are allocated for maintainance of the USMID roads. The USMID program only caters for construction and rehabilitation works and also provides 300 million shillings per local government annually for capacity building.
Magumba says that funds from the Uganda Road Fund which cater for rehabilitation works are inadequate and therefore there is need for additional funding for maintaining such roads.
He cited the example of the 2.6 kilometre Church Road which was constructed in 2015 under the first phase of USMID. Magumba says some of the drain covers have been destroyed by motorists who park in the walkways and that some solar lights have been vandalised or batteries stolen despite the presence of CCTV cameras.
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